


Jay's Brother

by StarlightSystem



Series: Cobalt Arc [3]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Angst, Gen, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21979633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightSystem/pseuds/StarlightSystem
Summary: Jay has been working in the cobalt mines her entire life. Against all odds, she's still alive when so many others have fallen. It's been decades since she's had anyone she could call family. And then, out of nowhere, a demon shows up and says he's her brother.Naturally, she's upset.
Series: Cobalt Arc [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541014
Comments: 31
Kudos: 97
Collections: TAU Discord Recs





	1. A Weird Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the [Transcendence AU](https://transcendence-au.tumblr.com/)! It's a followup to my fic "[Like Dust](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21375703)".
> 
> Thank you to the incredible [ToothPasteCanyon](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1472837) for beta reading this fic!

Clouds were soft, the girl realized. They were soft, and she had no idea why it had taken her this long to try resting on one.

She leaned back and sunk slightly into the plush surface. Not too far that she was worried about falling through, but enough that her neck and back felt supported. It almost felt like a hug. What she wouldn’t do for a real one right now, though.

The sky was beautiful tonight. It was full of twinkling lights, reaching out to her from afar, illuminating brilliant clouds of dust and getting sucked into black holes. She wanted to be _out there_ , dancing with her siblings, letting go for once in her life.

But for now, she thought, the cloud was good enough.

The girl closed one eye and raised her arm above her head. There was a star smack dab in the middle of her vision, and she pinched it with her thumb and index fingers. She mimed dragging it across the sky in an arc, wrenching it out of its home and taking it on a journey. The dust in the air sparkled as she did so, and she smiled.

It was a funny thought -- the idea that you could take something as brilliant and powerful as a _star_ and play with it like it was a toy. Stars weren’t toys. They were friends, and she was so, so lonely.

She closed her eyes, just for a moment, but when she reopened them, there was a massive comet between her and the star. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before. It just hung there, frozen in space. Motionless. Breathless.

The girl reached up again and wrapped her fingers around the comet. From her perspective, it seemed like it was in her reach, even though she knew it was millions of miles away. So far away that she’d never be able to tighten her grip, jerk her hand back, and bring it to rest with her on the cloud.

Except, that’s exactly what happened.

“Hi sweetheart,” the comet whispered.

The girl flushed bright red. “Hi there, m’lady.”

The comet giggled. “Miss me?”

“So much,” the girl breathed. “Every day.”

“I’m sorry.” Her smile held for a moment, and then turned into something darker. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know. Me too.”

They fell silent. The comet leaned back into the cloud just as the girl had, and looked up at her celestial home. For a few minutes, there was no need for words. The air glittered, the stars danced, and the girl… wasn’t lonely. She reached over and slipped her hand into the comet’s.

They smiled together. The girl puckered her lips, leaned over, and...

A voice reached into her ear, so tiny and distant that she wasn’t even sure it was real. “Mizar?”

The girl sat up. “Did you hear that?”

The comet cocked her head, letting her hair cascade over one shoulder. “Hear what?”

“I could’ve sworn I heard something.” The girl looked both ways, but nothing seemed to reveal itself. “Must’ve been my imagination.”

“That does sound like you,” the comet said, smirking.

The sky started to change colors, moving from a dark, deep blue to an orange. The girl frowned. “How do you mean?”

“You just have had the wildest imagination.” The comet leaned forward on her palm. “That’s always been so inspiring to me.”

“Heh. I guess. I guess I just -”

This time, it was a shout. “Mizar!”

“There it was again!” she yelped. She jerked her head upward, and gasped. The sky had lost its peaceful visage and seemed to be boiling over -- yellows and oranges and reds cavorting and bubbling wildly. “You see that, right? Do you see that?”

The comet smiled weakly. “Yeah. I do. It’ll be okay.”

“It’ll be okay? What does that -”

There was a sound like a whip cracking across the sky. Something bright appeared overhead, bright and yet so overwhelmingly dark. Something great and terrible, unfamiliar and unwelcome, and it was screaming through the heavens, igniting the dust as it flew. “Mizar! There you are! Mizar!”

The comet said nothing, and moved in close to hug her. The girl, frozen in shock, didn’t think to return the favor. All she could see was the furious ball of _something_ hurtling violently toward her.

“‘Til we meet again,” the comet whispered in her ear. “‘Til then, you’re going to have to wake up.”

The cloud beneath them began to shake. It was like the entire world was being torn apart. And all the while, the thing kept screaming, screaming so loud that the sound was rattling the girl’s very essence.

“MIZARMIZARMIZARMI-”

* * *

Jay woke with a start.

She instinctively tried to sit up, but there was a jolt of pain in her side, and she fell limp onto her pillow. She stared into the inky darkness of the room, trying to get her bearings without moving. She was awake now. She knew she was awake, lying in bed, safe and sound, and everything was fine -

A fit of coughing wracked her body. Her hand flew to her chest and started scrunching up her shirt in panic. She tried as hard as she could to just take a deep breath in… and out… in… and out... Her body hurt -- all of everything hurt. But this had worked for her yesterday, and the day before that, so she’d just have to power through. That was what she was best at, after all.

Her breathing gradually slowed, and her heart rate returned to normal. The pain in her chest started to subside. One last choking cough, and she lay limp on the bed again.

Everything _was_ fine, for some definition of fine. She was still alive, after all.

She wiped away the spittle that had accumulated on her face, and sighed. What was up with that dream? It had been a while since she’d had a pleasant dream -- these days, her dreams couldn’t seem to stop fixating on all of the ways she could accidentally get hurt at work. But that dream had been different. It was peaceful. It was relaxing in a way that she hadn’t experienced in quite a long time. And she’d been talking to someone, someone she cared about…

An uncomfortable tickle rippled through her skin, and she looked down to the foot of the bed. She couldn’t see anything but she could swear someone was there watching her.

Her eyes grew wide. Her arm lashed out to her side and flicked on the lightswitch. The sudden brightness seared her vision and for a minute she could only squint. When her eyes finally adjusted to the light, she gazed back down to the end of her bed. The room was a blurry mess, but as far as she could tell, there was no one there.

She sighed again. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Again. Akko had always told her that she had the wildest imagination.

Jay’s heart twinged, but this pain wasn’t physical.

Taking a deep breath, she slowly lifted herself into a sitting position. She fumbled around on her bedside table for her glasses and put them on. The room was the same as it always was. Small. Cold. Lonely.

She glanced at the clock. It was 9th trentile on the dot, which meant she still had a whole trentile before she had to get up. But she could tell from the way her skin was crawling and her mind was racing that she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. Which was fine. She wanted to get some writing in today anyway.

The room was filled with a symphony of creaking and popping joints as she picked herself up and made her way over to the desk on the other side of the room. Out of bed, she felt less exhausted, less encumbered by her body. The tightness in her chest eased up a little more, and the ache in her muscles slowly worked itself out. Everything was fine. She was alive.

When she got to the desk, she said in a sing-song voice, “Hey, computer, wake up!”

The screen lit up, revealing a text document that was just as barren as the last time she’d seen it. Her eyes scanned over the few lines she’d gotten down so far:

_Harsh cold nights in the recesses of space  
_ _Plucked right out, leaving me without a trace  
_ _Death defied, now she’s on her way back home_

Jay frowned. She’d gotten stuck on that line the day before, not because of the rhyme scheme -- she knew the line would end with the word “alone” -- but because she didn’t quite know what she wanted to say.

She briefly closed her eyes and thrummed her fingers against her nose. Behind her eyelids, the image of the distant star from her dream reappeared. She thought about closing her fingers safely around it, and then she knew how she wanted to end the stanza.

“ _One last hope that I won’t be so alone,_ ” she said aloud, and the computer wrote it down.

* * *

“Rhysti-Du!” came a barking voice when Jay walked into the mine that morning.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s Jay, sir.”

Her shift manager, Kanif, narrowed his three pairs of eyes and peered up at her, just like he did every day. “You’ll get a first name when you deserve it! What are you doing coming in so late?”

She glanced up at the clock projected on the wall. “Are you kidding me? It’s two minutes past 11th trentile. I’ve been working here my whole life and you still can’t look past two minutes?”

“That is correct!” Kanif fumed. “You, along with everyone else here, are expected to be through this door and scanned into the system by exactly 11th trentile! I’m sick of having to give you this speech!”

She gritted her teeth. “ _Sorry_ , sir, it won’t happen again.”

“See to it that it doesn’t! You’ve been skating on thin ice, Rhysti-Du. And let me tell you,” he added, reaching up to grab her chin and direct her gaze down at him. “I don’t care how many decades you’ve worked here. You’re not ‘special’ just because you’re older than the other workers. If another ion compressor detonates under your watch, you are history! Is that clear?”

She swatted his hand away. “Clear as cobalt, sir.”

She walked past him and up to the timekeeping system’s biometric scanner. She reached her hand in, and it made a harsh dinging noise, indicating that she was late. There was a whir, and her mining equipment was deposited from a chute onto a hoverdolly beside the scanner. She grabbed it by the handles and started to walk away with it.

“One more thing, Rhysti-Du,” Kanif called out.

Jay stopped, but didn’t turn to face him. “Yes?”

Even without seeing him, Jay could sense the smarmy grin on his face. “Since you were late, I’ll have to dock your pay for the whole trentile.”

Images of her monthly bills flashed before her eyes, decorated by the cruel glee underlying her manager’s voice. Something snapped within her, and she turned on him with fists clenched. Just like every day, she entertained the thought of pummeling the lights out of him. But then she saw the clock projection floating above his head, flickering 11:05 back at her, and she remembered how poorly that would work out for her.

She instead ground her teeth together, and forced herself not to scream when she spoke. “Well, then, I guess I might as well leave and come back in 45 minutes, seeing as I won’t be getting paid until then anyway.”

He narrowed his eyes again. “Good one. Get back to work.”

Jay opened her mouth, and then shut it before she said something she’d regret. She turned back to her hoverdolly and set off to her work area. She felt Kanif’s eyes on her as she heaved the dolly out of the room, and she knew how much enjoyment he must’ve been getting out of bossing her around.

As she passed through the doorway, she felt that prickling feeling on her skin again, like there was something else watching her too. But she didn’t want to give Kanif the satisfaction of seeing her turn around, so she ignored it and pressed on.

* * *

It was late when Jay finally powered off her quantum axe and laid it on the hoverdolly. She knew she couldn’t afford to have her pay docked, so she worked an extra trentile to make up for it. Combined with the trentile of sleep she’d missed, she was feeling extremely worn down at the end of the day.

Her body cried out to her with exhaustion as she pushed forward with her hoverdolly and began the winding trip from her work area to the mine’s entrance. The mine was mostly empty at that point, with only a few other workers left behind who must have also been unlucky enough to miss the start of the day by a minute or two. She waved at them weakly as she went, but didn’t bother exchanging words. She knew neither she nor they had the energy for that.

When she arrived at the entrance to the mine, she expected to see Kanif still standing there with the same callous grin on his face. To her surprise, he was nowhere to be seen. He usually loved to rub her exhaustion in her face, even if it meant staying late. But it seemed that even he had better things to do that night.

The world was dark when she deposited her equipment and stepped outside. It was a little after 22nd trentile, and the nearest star, Prima, had probably _just_ dipped below the horizon. After the day she’d had, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed. She always loved watching the star set -- loved watching the sky flush with pinks and oranges and yellows and reds.

She also loved watching it with someone. A friend, a family member, a lover… She hadn’t had any of those in quite a while.

She swallowed, and she started on her walk home. She made a quick stop at the diner at the end of the block to pick up some dinner so she wouldn’t starve, just like every day. Then she headed out of the town proper, and into the residential district. There were fewer and fewer people on the street with every turn she made. Soon, she was alone, and instead of dodging passersby, she found herself gazing up into the starry sky as she walked.

It was beautiful, as always. And as she padded down the street, exhaustion weighing down her mind, she wondered what would happen if she reached up into the sky and...

There was an odd noise, like what she imagined “twinkling stars” sounded like. Then, rustling, from not far ahead of her. Jay blinked, and took her eyes off the sky to find that she was in a dark alley.

Great.

Maybe she’d made a mistake taking this route home, but it was by far the fastest way, and it wasn’t usually this dark when she went home after work. If she ended up getting mugged because of Kanif playing games with her, she might not be able to restrain herself from hurting him the next time she saw him.

“Anyone there?” she yelled into the dark. “Show yourself!”

There was a pause, and Jay wondered whether she’d maybe imagined the noise and the rustling. It wouldn’t have been the first time that day her imagination had been working in overtime. She was just about to let out a sigh of relief… and then the darkness started to chuckle.

“Oh, that’s right,” the voice replied. It had a weird echo to it that would’ve been intimidating if it didn’t sound so… giddy. “You can’t see me. I’ll fix that.”

Jay set her jaw. Right. That was enough. “You think I’m gonna be an easy target just because I’m old?” she shouted. “Get out of here, I don’t have anything you want.”

There was that chuckle again, and from the darkness stepped a man. She couldn’t make out any of his features in the low lighting, but she could see he was wearing a ridiculously old fashioned suit and a matching top hat.

“Don’t be silly,” he responded, and Jay felt a shiver rush through her body. “It’s _you_ I’ve been looking for, Mizar.”


	2. Family Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Years! :D

Jay stared at the man in front of her and felt his words bounce around in her head. Mizar… He’d called her Mizar. What the heck was he talking about? The name sounded so familiar for some reason, but she couldn’t place it. All she was getting was a warm, fuzzy feeling. Like she was floating on a cloud. Like she -

The stranger took a step forward, and Jay snapped out of her reverie.

“Hey, buddy, stop right there!” she shouted, struck with the reality of being alone with a stranger in a dark alley. “You think I’m not capable of kicking your butt?”

The man paused mid-step. “Why would you do that?”

Jay gritted her teeth. She dropped the plastic bag with her dinner in it to the ground and flexed her hands. She bent her knees and raised her fists. Her arms, weathered by age, trembled with the exertion, but she still held her ground. “Why? Cause I've got nothing to lose, buddy! Go mug someone else.”

He was silent for a minute, and then took a step backward. “You dropped your food.”

She looked up to where his eyes probably were and scowled. “Yeah, and I’ve got nothing else on me. I’m not even worth bothering.”

“I- I’m not trying to bother you.” His voice quivered just a tad. “Oh, **z̭̗͍̲̠g̙̳̗̭̮̖̖l̮or͔͚̼͍͙̙k̼̩͢** , this is going all wrong.”

She straightened up, confused, at the lack of confidence in his voice. “ _What’s_ going wrong? What are you doing here?”

“Well, I wanted to meet you and maybe become friends, yknow…”

Jay scrunched her face up. “No! I don’t know! I don’t know who you are! You’re just some creepy guy in an alley!”

“I’m… No, you’re…” The man’s voice cracked, and he swallowed. “Mizar, I’m your brother.”

Jay felt half the muscles in her body contract at his words. Any fear she’d had at the idea of confronting a stranger in the dark vanished. “No!” she yelled, and stomped her foot forward.

The man eeped and lifted his hands up. “Mizar?”

Her imagination was getting wild again. She saw a crude lab built halfway into an open mine shaft. There was a big vat in the middle of the room. She took a step forward. He took a step back.

“Look, I’m just not explaining it very well…”

They said it was an accident, but she saw, she knew better. One push, and he was screaming, the worst scream she’d ever heard in her life, and it wasn’t _his_ voice. She took a step forward. He took a step back.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Closer up, she could see that the man wasn’t human. He seemed to have a pair of dark wings extending from his lower back. When he spoke, she caught a glint of light bounce off razor sharp interlocking teeth. She didn’t doubt that he could tear her apart if he wanted to, but right now it appeared that he was the one afraid of the old lady.

“You’re not my brother,” she growled. “My brother is _dead_!”

“Y- Yes, I am!” he stuttered.

He backed up again, stepping out of the alleyway into a deserted street. The starlight illuminated his features, and she froze. A pair of coal black eyes blinked back at her.

He looked _vaguely_ human, but clearly wasn’t. Humans didn’t have claws that looked like they could cut through flesh in an instant. Humans didn’t have wings, and even humanlike aliens didn’t have wings like his. They weren’t black like she thought -- she could see stars in them, like they were like a window into the night sky. And there was nothing in the world she could think of that had eyes like _that_. All at once, the fear was back.

“What… what are you?” she asked, almost failing to find the breath to speak.

The nervous look on his face morphed into a confused one. “What do you mean? I'm, uh, Alcor. Yknow. The Dreambender.”

“Who?”

Alcor did a double take. “You've never heard of me?”

She stared at him blankly. “Nuh-uh. Are you famous or something? What's a famous guy like you hiding in alleyways and mugging old women?”

He scowled. “I'm not mugging you! And yeah, you could say I'm famous, but like… not really in a good way?”

Jay stood up straight and crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh yeah? Why's that?”

Alcor seemed to droop in response to that. Suddenly, his sharp teeth and claws didn’t seem so frightening anymore. He seemed more like the nervous guy she thought he was when she’d been yelling at him in the dark. He didn’t speak for a minute.

“Don't scream, okay?” he said finally, staring at his feet. Another long pause, and then: “I'm... a demon.”

Jay scowled. “What the heck is that? Are you just making up words now?”

Alcor perked up all at once, surprise written all over his face. “What? You don't know what a demon is?”

“Listen, buddy,” Jay spat, hands on her hips. “I'm a trentile late to get home because I had to work overtime today, and standing around yapping with you is gonna make it two trentiles. Do you want me to kick your butt or is it cool if I just go now?”

His brow furrowed. “What's a trentile?”

”That's it. I'm out of here.”

“Wait!” he called out, but she was already turning around. ‘Demon’ or not, she was pretty convinced at this point that he wasn’t going to hurt her. It was late and she wanted to go home, and if it meant taking a longer route just to avoid this weirdo, so be it.

She walked to the other end of the alley, crouched down, and picked up the bag with her dinner in it. With any luck, it’d still be slightly warm when she got home. She stood back up, and Alcor was right in front of her.

“Please, don’t go.”

“Ack!” Jay yelped, jumping backward. “Stop sneaking up on me, man!”

He flinched. “Sorry!”

“Apology not accepted!” She stuck her tongue out and spun around, but found herself once again face-to-face with the demon.

“Can we just talk?”

“Nope! I’m leaving! Bye!” She turned around again, but somehow there he was, blocking her exit. “Stop it! How are you doing that?”

“I told youuuuu,” he whined. “I’m a demon.”

“I still don’t know what that is!” she barked back.

Fixing her eyes on him, Jay started to walk backwards. She saw him reach a hand out as if to follow her, but then he stopped, sadness written all over his face. She sneered, confident in her victory over his weird superspeed powers.

Then she tripped.

“Frick!” she shrieked. Her arms shot out to try to grab something, but she had been walking down the center of the alleyway to prevent herself from getting cornered, and there was nothing to steady herself on. Her hands moved down, and the base of her palm ended up going right into the concrete, causing her to wrench it back in pain. Finally, her butt hit the ground, sending a shock of pain throughout her body.

All the while, Alcor was watching her, face contorted in concern. He hadn’t moved from where she’d left him.

“Are you happy now-owwwww!” she started, and then had to curl over in pain. The plastic bag on her arm had flipped over and wrapped itself tightly around her wrist; she waved her arm frantically to get it off, then thought better of it and pulled it off with her other hand. She chanced a look at her palm, and -- _oh stars that was blood, look away look away look away_.

She looked away, and then Alcor was right in front of her.

“Mizar, I- I’m sorry!” he stammered. “I- I should’ve caught you, I should’ve, I just thought you didn’t want me to -- stupid, _stupid_!”

“Stay right there!” she hissed. With all her might, she slowly scooted herself to the side of the alley. Each movement stung her hand and jolted her aching core. She rested her back against the wall and took some deep, heaving breaths.

“Ah, cheese,” she swore. “Falling hurts a lot more when you’re old. Why’d you keep sneaking up on me, man?”

He winced. “I’m sorry, ugh… Please, just… Let me heal your cut. I feel really bad about making you fall. Then I’ll leave.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Heal my cut? Are you a doctor?”

“No, I’m a -”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember, you’re a demon,” she cut in, scowling. “Whatever that means. A doctor would probably be more useful right now.” She thought of the cut on her hand again, and the bile rose in her throat. “But... okay, okay, fine, if you leave when you’re done I guess you can heal my -”

Instantly, he was crouching on the ground next to her. She eeped in surprise. “How did you do that? I was _looking_ at you this time and I still can’t tell how you moved that quickly!”

He smiled weakly at her. “Yeah. I’m… yeah. Anyway, this might sting a bit.”

“Uh, what do you -”

Before she could finish, he had grabbed her hand and lifted it to his face. She gasped and closed her eyes, not wanting to see what he was about to do, but to her surprise, the pain never came. Instead, she just felt something… wet? And a little bit slimy? She cautiously opened one eye to take a peek, and saw Alcor licking her wound with a forked tongue.

“What are you _doing_?” she shouted. “You _are_ just some creep! I swear I’ll -”

“Done!” he squeaked, dropping her hand. “Good as new!”

“What?” She looked at her hand. The cut was gone, as if it had never been there at all. “I- Uh, the- you, what?”

“Well, I guess I’ll be going now,” he interrupted, standing up. He smiled again, but he didn’t look happy. “Sorry for the trouble. I hope you have a nice, uh, ‘trentile’.” He started walking away, and Jay’s mind short-circuited.

“Wait!” she cried. “Wait, I -”

He looked back at her, and her voice caught in her throat. Whatever otherworldly feeling she’d sensed from him when she saw his eyes was doubled. He seemed so overwhelmingly fake that it made her mind hurt a little bit just to look at him. It was like watching a dream playing out in someone else’s head.

“How… did you do that?” she breathed. “Do you know magic?”

“You could say that.” Alcor scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Yknow… ‘cause I’m a demon.”

“Dude, I know, you keep saying that. What _is_ that?”

“Uhh…” He sat down in front of her and started wringing his wrists. “It’s hard to explain. A demon is kind of a sentient bundle of… evil… magic? _But but but_ I’m actually pretty different from other demons -- most of them aren’t as nice as me, haha.”

She rolled her eyes. “Get to the point. So, you’re some kind of magic man? Can you do, like, anything?”

“I- yeah, kind of!” His nervous expression worsened, and he broke eye contact with her. “As long as I get something good enough in exchange, that is. I can’t really do magic for free.”

Jay’s jaw dropped. “Wait. Are you going to _charge_ me? Is this a mugging after all?”

“No, no!” he spluttered, waving his hands frantically. “No, you don’t owe me anything. The blood I drank from your cut was enough to pay for healing it.”

“You _drank my blood_?” she yelled. “That’s disgusting!”

He flinched and drew back. “I’m sorry -- I should’ve told you, but I just went ahead and did it anyway, I’m sorry…”

Jay closed her eyes to shut out the gibbering demon, and took a deep breath. “No, okay, it’s fine. Thanks for doing it. I just… what’s your deal, man? Who are you and why do you want to help me out so much?”

Alcor opened his mouth, and then quickly clapped his hands to cover it. There was a funny noise -- something small and high pitched that sounded _oddly_ like a giggle.

Jay opened her eyes so she could glare at him. “What?”

“Sorry,” he replied, his hands still covering his mouth. “You asked me about my ‘deal’, and that’s… okay never mind.” He coughed and put on a straight face. “Sorry. I want to help you because you’re my sister, and -”

“I already told you -- you’re not my brother!” she yelled. “I’ve got one brother and he’s dead!”

Alcor frowned. “I _am_ \-- well, not _your_ brother, but… it’s weird.” With a sigh, he pulled his knees up to his chest and stared at the ground. “My sister died a long time ago. She was my best friend and I miss her everyday.”

“Okay, but why…” Jay started, then faltered. A memory floated into her head of a girl lying on a cloud next to a comet, and she shuddered. She looked at her hand, the one he’d healed, and thought about how warm it’d felt when it was clasped together with _hers_. Slowly, she extended it, and patted Alcor on the shoulder. “I… sorry. I know how that feels and it’s the worst.”

“Yeah, but it’s not all bad!” he said, perking up. He looked at her, and the dark voids of his eyes were starting to fill in with gold. “Because _you’ve_ got her soul! I know you’re not her, but I feel connected to you because of it. And I was wondering, yknow, if maybe you’d like a brother. I know I’d really love to have a sister again.”

Jay’s mouth flapped open and shut, unable even to parse his words for a minute. Was this guy seriously offering to be her brother? Was that a thing people actually did? She didn’t trust Alcor as far as she could throw him, but…

The idea of having some family again… It was honestly very enticing.

Not that she particularly wanted to admit that to him right then.

He must have seen the shocked look on her face because he then added, “I know, I know that we don’t even know each other and that I came out of nowhere, and also that I’m weird and creepy, and let’s not forget the fact that I’m a demon, and -”

“Wow, you make such a compelling argument,” she cut in.

He shrank a little and pursed his lips. “Yeah… I’m good at that.”

She shook her head and extended her hand. Confused, he stared at it briefly before grabbing it and shaking it.

“Dude, what are you doing? Can you help me up?”

“Oh!” he replied, looking embarrassed. He stood up and gave her a gentle tug. Before she knew it, she was on her feet as well, without any of the usual old lady aches and pains she got from standing up.

“Thanks.” She looked at him again -- saw the weird mixture of hope and regret that he was radiating, and couldn’t help but feel curious. Curious about her soul, curious about magic, curious about this guy who seemed… just as lonely as she was. “Could you, uh, maybe walk me home? It’s pretty dark out. Who knows what kind of creepy weirdos might be waiting to ambush me in the dark.”

He snorted, and a smile started to breach his features. “Yeah, I can do that, Mizar.”

They started walking back down the alleyway. It wasn’t that much further to her apartment, but… the company was nice. Back on the starlit street, she looked up at the sky again, at the beauty that had been distracting her on her walk home earlier. It was peaceful, much more peaceful than the world she was actually living in. She wondered if that was why she liked it so much.

“It’s Jay, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“My name,” Jay replied, still looking at the stars. “If you’re going to talk to me, at least call me Jay.”

“Oh.” He shuffled awkwardly. “Sorry, Jay.”

“Who is Mizar, anyway? Was that your sister’s name?”

“Sort of. Mizar was her codename. Just like ‘Alcor’ isn’t _my_ real name.”

“Fair enough. ‘Jay’ isn’t my real name either.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him looking at her funnily. “What, only demons get to have nicknames? Hey, wait a minute, since I have your sister’s soul, does that mean I’m a demon too? Do I have secret magic powers that I don’t know about?”

He audibly sucked in a deep breath and started coughing. She looked at him and cocked her head. “No, uh, no,” he said when he’d caught his breath. “She wasn’t a demon. She was a human, like you. It’s… complicated.”

“Aw, man. That would’ve been so cool. Maybe you could show me some more tricks later?”

He stopped walking and stared at her. “Really? You’d like that?”

She paused, realizing what she’d said, and scrunched up her face. “I mean, maybe. This whole ‘offering to be my brother’ thing is kind of a lot. I’d like some time to think about it.”

A huge smile broke out on his face, which he quickly dialed down. “Yes, yes, of course, that’s totally reasonable.” He started walking again, with a very obvious skip in his step. “Take all the time you need.”

She watched him go briefly. His wings bobbed, and through them she saw the stars glimmer. She sped up to catch up with him. “Hey, tell me something. If I have your sister’s soul, why aren’t you like an old man? You’d have to be at least as old as I am.”

“Oh, I’m _way_ older,” he replied giddily. “Like, millions of years older. I, uh, I’m immortal. But she wasn’t. Like I said, it’s complicated,” he finished, his smile falling away.

She boggled at that, and had to mentally discard most of it because it was just too confusing at the moment. She latched onto the part that made at least a little bit of sense. “It took you that long to find your sister’s soul? I mean, I don’t know anything about souls, but…”

“Oh, no, I’ve met up with her reincarnations countless times. Usually I find them when they’re a lot younger, so we have more time together, but time kind of got away from me…”

Jay gaped at him. “You’ve done this tons of times before and yet you’re still this bad at it?” His face twisted nervously, and she gave him a light punch on the arm. “Kidding. Well, not really. This was awful. Are you usually this bad at it?”

He smiled weakly. “Yeah… sometimes. Sometimes it goes a lot better. There have definitely been Mizars that have reacted a lot worse than you have.”

“Huh. Alright.”

They walked in silence for the next few minutes, until they reached the door of her apartment building. Jay’s brain was still buzzing with both excitement and confusion. Alcor had said a lot of things that she was sure she’d need a lot of time to process, but there was something in particular that was eating at her now. Something he’d said about time getting away from him. She wondered what that meant. Maybe she should ask -

“Anyway, this is your place, right?”

Jay blinked. “Oh, yeah. Thanks for walking me home.” She wiggled her nose nervously. “I guess I better go inside -- it’s really late now. How, um, how can I get in contact with you again?”

He grinned -- his vicious teeth looking so out of place in such an innocent smile -- and snapped his fingers. “There. I’ve put some stuff in your room. When- if you want to see me again, lay the picture of the circle on the floor, arrange the candles around the edge of it, and light them. Then, cut your finger and let a little bit of blood drop in the middle. I’ll show right up.”

She blanched. “There’s no way in Bezsinova I’m cutting my finger on purpose.”

“Oh. Right, of course. Um, then just leave some food there, preferably candy. That’ll work just as well.”

“Alright…” She gave him a little wave. “Bye then.”

Alcor giggled. “Yeah, bye Jay! It was nice to meet you.” He waved back at her, bowed dramatically, and then vanished.

Jay gaped at the empty space the man had previously been occupying, before burying her face in her hands. What was she getting herself into? She climbed the stairs slowly, making note of the fact that she wasn’t aching nearly as much as she’d expected to given that she’d fallen onto concrete earlier. She wondered if it was something Alcor had done when he’d healed her cut.

She stepped into her apartment, and sure enough, there was a big piece of paper with an intricate design on it and a bundle of candles sitting on her bed. She moved them onto the desk, and sat down with a groan. So wrapped up with talking to Alcor she was that she’d forgotten how exhausted she was, but now that she was home it came back in droves.

She pulled out her dinner, which at this point was cold as a rock. Grimacing, she forced herself to eat the whole thing, even though it was almost unpalatable. There was no sense in letting any food go to waste, not after she’d worked so hard for the money to pay for it.

Jay swallowed the last of her food, and yawned. It was a trentile earlier than she usually went to bed, but between waking up early, working late, and falling on her butt in the street, she really needed the sleep. She cleaned up her food, glanced once more at the stuff Alcor had given her, and then got ready for bed.

As she slipped under the covers, she felt the prickling sensation rush over her skin again. She put her glasses back on to confirm that yep, there really was no one else in the room. With a sigh, she took them off and turned off the lights. Maybe, if she saw Alcor again, she’d ask him if he knew what it meant. Until then, she just dismissed it as her imagination overacting again.

 _If she saw Alcor again_. She turned the thought over and over behind closed eyelids. He wasn’t her brother, _he wasn’t_... but maybe he could be. She didn’t even know why she was considering it. Why should she? The guy had accosted her in a dark alley! It had been a long time since she’d even considered letting herself get close to anyone, but for some reason she felt weirdly drawn to him.

It was all too much for her to process in one night, she thought. Jay closed her eyes, and before she knew it, she was fast asleep.


	3. Hope Against Hope

_Chunk._

The girl slammed her axe into the blue rock in front of her. The rock resisted -- gaining an ugly scratch but otherwise surviving unharmed. It seemed to sneer at her, seemed to say, “ _What, having a hard time? Getting too old for this?_ ”

She groaned in response. Dropping her pickaxe, she straightened up, and heard a creak as something shifted in her back. She nearly doubled over again, but caught herself by resting a hand on the cavern wall. She breathed in through her nose and tried to swallow the hacking cough that she felt wriggling its way out of her. Everything was okay. She could do this. She did it every day.

Still… it seemed harder that day than usual. She glanced down at her pickaxe -- an old rusty tool that seemed to be aging before her eyes -- and then peered out at the other workers around her. They all raised their axes in unison -- brought them high above their heads before each clicking a button that shot beams of energy into their respective hunks of cobalt.

“Hey, wait a minute.” She could barely recognize her voice when it came out. It sounded about as bad as her pickaxe looked. “What’s the big setup? Why do you all have quantum axes and I’ve got this piece of junk?”

Every worker turned to look at her. “Because you’re obsolete, Miss Du,” they said together, their collective voice echoing through the cave like it was a scream in her ear.

“And junk like you doesn’t deserve more than junk in turn,” came a voice from behind her.

The girl tried to gasp, but what came out instead was an awful, spluttering cough. She whipped around to find her shift manager looming over her, staring down with a wicked grin.

“Tick-tock,” he purred, pulling up a clock display on the wall panel and thrumming his fingers against it. “You’re slowing down. If you don’t increase your output we’ll have no choice but to -”

_Knock knock knock._

Her manager’s mouth was still moving, but no sound was coming out. Instead, there was a steady knocking coming from behind her. Confused, she glanced back to see a door standing freely in the middle of the room. She could see it rattle in time with the knocking, and there was a soft, white glow pouring in from the edges of the frame.

The girl stepped toward it. Her manager tried to stop her -- jumped in her path with fire in his eyes and snakes pouring out of his mouth -- but she ignored him. He wasn’t a threat anymore. All she could hear was the knocking.

She brushed her fingers along the access pad, and it slid open. A brilliant, blinding light stood on the other side. He was much brighter than Prima, but she had no trouble looking at him.

He stepped across the doorframe and extended a hand to her. “Let’s get out of here.”

She went to grab his hand, but hesitated. “I don’t know. Why should I trust you?”

His smile flickered, plunging her momentarily back into darkness. “What?”

“I don’t know you.” She sensed her manager reaching over her shoulder with a slimy tentacle, and she slapped it away. “But I know this. I know how to survive this.”

“But... this is awful. Why would you want to stay here? What happened to your dreams of exploring the cosmos?”

The girl looked up and saw the night sky projected onto the cave ceiling, semi-transparent like a hologram. It was beautiful, but it made her feel emptier than ever.

“Could I really do it? Could you actually take me there?”

“Anywhere,” he breathed. “Anywhere you want.”

She sighed. “I need some time to think about it, alright? Give me some time.”

The star nodded. “Of course. Just… let me know, alright? It’s lonely in here.”

She tried to respond, but her throat fought against her. She shuddered with pain, clutched her stomach, and a rough, stuttering cough heaved its way out of her. She looked up at him, his hand still extended out to her, his smile weak but there nonetheless. Cautiously, she reached up and accepted his invitation.

Quick as a whistle, he pulled her up to her feet. The pain was gone, her breathing once again simple, and she could swear the air around her was sparkling. She stared at her hands, which suddenly felt so strong and capable, and gulped.

“Thanks,” she said.

He only bowed in response. He spun around to leave, filling the room with a brilliant display of colors for a brief moment. Then he vanished, and it was dark again. She was holding a pickaxe again. Her manager was behind her, fury radiating out of his empty eye sockets. The world was her burden once more.

And yet it was so _pointless_. So _insignificant_.

Gritting her teeth, she turned around to face her manager. Before he could say a word, she reached out and grabbed his head with both hands. She felt the power pulsing through her, felt the fear radiating off him in her grasp. She smiled, because for once, she was in control.

She smiled, and she squeezed his skull as hard as she could, letting the slime ooze over her fingers and waiting for the moment when it would _POP_ -

* * *

Jay gasped and opened her eyes.

It was a dream. It was a dream and she was awake now and she definitely hadn’t snapped at work and killed her manager. She let out a sigh of relief. Everything was fine. It was just another one of those weird dreams she’d been having for the past couple of days. No matter how much she hated Kanif and her job, physically attacking him would do her far more harm than good.

Although -- she had to admit that it felt _really good_ to take her frustrations out on Kanif. Maybe the dreams weren’t so bad, as long as she never really acted on them.

As she gradually returned to consciousness, Jay began to realize that she wasn’t in her bed. The pillow she was using was flat and rough. Her glasses were already on, and the room was bright. She wasn’t at home at all -- she was at the library.

She jolted upright. There was a tearing noise -- a page of the book she’d been sleeping and apparently drooling on had stuck to her face. She pulled it off and examined it.

_In folklore, a **deer** is a mythical beast that is believed to appear in times of need to guide lost souls to safety. It is often depicted as tall, furry, hoofed, quadrupedal, and antlered. According to the Encyclopedia of Ancient Creature Lore, a deer is an ordinary pony that has been touched by a divine being and granted immortality._

Jay grimaced. None of that made sense. She picked up the book she’d been resting on and read the cover -- _A History of Magical Creatures_. Why was she reading… Oh yeah.

It had been three days since she’d met Alcor on the way home from work. Since then, the candles and magic circle he’d left her had remained untouched in the corner of her room as she wracked her brain for reasons to contact him again. There was so much about him that didn’t make sense -- a normal person would’ve dismissed him entirely at this point -- but some part of her was curious. Some part of her wanted to believe him.

One of the things that continued to confuse her was his claim that he was a demon. She’d been combing both the library and the Interweb for any information on what a demon was, and after three days she still had nothing to show for it. She’d woken up early that morning so she could go to the library again before work, but apparently her lack of sleep had caught up with her and…

Jay jumped out of her chair. _Work_. She checked her phone and -- _heck_ , it was 12th trentile. She was very late for work. Panicking, she dropped the book and darted out of the building. The torn page she’d slept on fluttered slowly to the ground behind her.

It was 12:25 when she made it to the lobby of the mine, hoping against hope that no one had missed her. She already knew her pay would be docked, but if Kanif saw how late she was she'd surely get fired, and she couldn’t let that happen. He'd been mysteriously absent the past couple of days so maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be there -

Her hope vanished quickly when she breached the double doors and saw Kanif staring up at her with a furious look on his face.

“ _I’msosorryI’mlateKanifsir!_ ” Jay blurted, out of breath from running. “It won’t happen again, I -”

“Rhysti-Du!” Kanif barked, cutting her off. “I thought I made it very clear to you what would happen if you were late again! Tick-tock!”

“Sir, _please_ , I can’t lose this job. I’ll work late again!”

Kanif grinned at her, words starting to form on his lips, and then -- something happened.

Jay’s vision flickered. The air suddenly felt very thick, like they were standing in honey. She refocused her eyes to see Kanif’s smile dead on the ground, replaced with a look of abject horror. He took a step back and hit the wall behind him. Jay could’ve sworn he was trembling. He looked so weak and puny -- kind of like in her dream. Her dream, when her hands had felt so full of power. Her dream -- or was it real life? -- where something inside of her had whispered _go… do it… do it now…_

Then the moment passed. The pressure in the air was gone, and Jay couldn’t remember what she’d been thinking about a moment ago. But Kanif was still backed into the wall looking as scared as if he’d just seen a monster.

“Mr. Kanif… sir?” she asked nervously. “Are you alright?”

He didn’t respond at first, just looked both ways a few times. “Yes, I’m fine, _Jay_!” he choked out eventually. His words were studded with nervous laughter and he could barely keep his eyes on her. “Everything is up to code. About being late today -- we can just pretend that didn’t happen, do you hear me? That’d be exemplary! Get along to work now, there’s mining to do.”

“Uhh…” She looked behind her to make sure there wasn’t some other person there named Jay that Kanif might’ve been talking to. “Alright…?”

“Great! Off you go!”

He then scampered out of the room more quickly than she’d ever seen him move. For a few minutes she could only gape at the space where he’d stood. Never in the decade that he’d been her manager had he ever shown her any mercy for lateness or mistakes of any kind. It was baffling.

Something had happened -- she thought to herself as she collected her mining equipment and set off to her post -- something had happened a few days ago and since then her life had gotten weird. She wanted answers, and she was beginning to think there was only one person who had them.

* * *

There was an electronic chime as Jay pushed open the door to the diner. A cheaply decorated room greeted her on the other side. The atmosphere was sleepy -- most people were eating silently, with the odd couple sitting together in a booth and whispering in each other’s ears. None of this was out of the ordinary.

Jay stepped over to the counter and sat down on a stool. A couple of people sitting nearby glanced at her -- people she’d never met but must have seen countless times before -- but they returned quickly to their food. She looked around for the waitress -- they really needed more than one, but for _some_ reason couldn’t seem to afford another -- before spotting her at the other end of the room, taking someone’s order. She gave her a little wave, and turned to look out the window while she waited.

The world outside was still lit, thanks to Jay getting out of work a trentile earlier than she had the previous day. The view out of the diner’s front window was mostly occluded by the shops on the other side of the street, but there was a small alley between the laundromat and the convenience store through which she could appreciate the setting star. The sky was awash with color -- the greenish-blue of day replaced by a brilliant orange, soon to fade away into the saddest pink.

It was beautiful, the small slice of the sky she could see while waiting to order her food. It was beautiful and it was filled with so many memories of lying in the grass watching the sky, hand-in-hand with Akko or Sunil or Evan. These days, she never really got to watch Prima set. She wondered if maybe she should try waiting a bit before grabbing food after work, so she could spend some time outside just letting the colors swirl around her, just thinking and dreaming and hoping and -

“Jay?”

The sound of snapping fingers brought Jay back to the present. The waitress -- Gnern or Gnert or something -- was staring at her with a weird expression on her face.

Jay grimaced. “What?”

“I said, can I take your order?”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” She shook her head. “Sorry about that. I’ll have… uh… the usual. Slashnorts with umbrella broccoli. Actually, no, wait. Make that umbrella pipsqueaks instead.”

The waitress nodded and made a complicated gesture at the notepad she was holding, which responded by dinging. Then she cocked her head at Jay. “How are you doing, pip? Holding in there?”

Jay blinked. “Uh. What does that mean?”

“You just looked distracted, is all. I don’t mind it, I mean. They say that’s supposed to happen to old folks, right?”

“I…” Jay paused. “I think I read that once.”

She tilted her head slightly to catch view of herself in the mirror behind the waitress. She studied her wavy grey locks -- once a deep brown, the color had started draining out of them years ago and they were almost white at this point. Her skin was wrinkled where it had once been smooth. She hadn’t needed glasses when she started working in the mines, but at some point everything had started getting blurry, and before she knew it, she was in the convenience store buying a cheap pair of rectangular frames.

She knew that these were things that happened when you got old, but it still felt like she was changing somehow -- like the person she had been was being squeezed from her and soon she’d become something else entirely. It was one thing knowing theoretically that people changed when they got old and it was another to actually become an old person herself. And the idea that her mind could be changing too as a part of it was very stressful.

“Yeah…” she continued. “Maybe all of... this... is because I’m getting old.”

The waitress snorted. “Pip, _I’m_ old, and you’re twice my age. I think you borrowed the kilter on ‘getting’ old a few decades ago.”

Jay frowned. “Yeah, yeah. Are you here to take my order or gawk at me?”

“I wasn’t -” she started, but hesitated at the annoyed expression on Jay’s face. “Your order, I guess. I’ll be right back hun.”

She quickly turned away and walked into the kitchen. Jay winced at how hurt she’d sounded -- she hadn’t meant to come off so brusque but the few days of confusion and frustration must’ve taken a toll on her. She didn’t want to take that out on anyone else. The waitress stepped back into the room a moment later, carrying a couple of plates of food on her arm. She started placing them down in front of other customers sitting at the counter.

Jay cleared her throat. “Hey, Gnern.” The waitress glanced up, looking nonplussed. “I’m sorry I was being rude. I’ve had a long few days, and I might’ve been kind of annoyed because I was trying to research something earlier and was coming up with nothing, blah blah blah.”

The waitress put down the last plate she was carrying and cocked her head at Jay. “Well, pip, my name’s Gnert, not Gnern,” ( _DARN IT_ ), “but I accept your apology. What’s eating at you?”

Jay stared at her blankly until what she’d said clicked in her brain. “Wait. You’re asking me about my day?”

“Yeah. You’re in here a lot and you don’t really speak up much. What’s eating at you?”

“Uh…” Jay mentally juggled images of all the weird stuff that had been happening to her. There was no way she could even begin to explain most of it. “Well, this’ll sound strange, but… Have you ever heard of a demon?”

“Oh, yeah. Is that all?”

Jay felt like she’d been kicked in the gut. “What? You- how- how do you know? I spent so much time in the library and I found nothing!”

Gnert shrugged. “Mom told me when I was young. It’s an old story for kids, you know? You wouldn’t find anything like that in the library.”

When Jay could only wordlessly flap her mouth open and shut like a fish, Gnert laughed and leaned over the counter. “Alright, pip. Here’s the story. I don’t remember any names or morals or nothin’ but I remember the basics. They say a demon is a star that fell out of the sky and has to live on the ground like a person.”

Jay felt a tingly sensation creep up across her neck. She nodded at Gnert. “Go on.”

“Well, the star is lonely down on the ground. It can’t ever go back where it came from. It misses its family in the sky so bad that it turns to wickedness.”

Jay furrowed her brow. “Wickedness? Really?”

Gnert shrugged. “It’s a story for kids. There’s always a good guy and a bad guy.”

Jay remembered Alcor telling her that most demons weren’t as nice as him. The tingling feeling spread from her neck to her torso. “Okay. Go on.”

“You know how you can go wish on a star? They say that’s because stars are made out of magic. And that means demons are too.”

Jay saw herself turning around and around and finding Alcor in front of her no matter what she did. Her arms were tingling now.

“The demons try to trick people by giving them nice things and doing favors with their magic.”

His words rang in Jay’s ears. _I can’t really do magic for free_.

“And then right when you’re not expecting it… BAM!” Gnert slammed her hands on the counter. “They gobble you right up!”

Gnert started laughing, but it felt very far away. The tingling had spread across Jay’s entire body at this point, and with the tingling came a thought. A memory. An image floated into her brain of Alcor crouching down next to her, her hand in his, his tongue lapping away at her cut -- lick, lick, lick -- and there was blood on his teeth. Her blood.

Something in her brain flipped over. She jumped out of her stool, and banged her hip against the underside of the counter. “Frick- agh!” she yelled, barely avoiding falling over in pain.

Half of the diner looked up at her shout. Gnert dashed around the counter to her with a panicked expression on her face. “Jay, I’m sorry, I got too excited about that story. Let me help you.”

“No, stop, I’m fine,” Jay grunted. She grabbed the edge of the counter to pull herself up. “It wasn’t the story. I’m just old, haha, remember? I’m fine.”

Gnert seemed torn between offering her more help and leaving her be. Deflating, she returned to the other side of the counter, and started fiddling with cooking instruments, all without taking her eyes off of Jay.

It took a minute for Jay’s breath to go back to normal. Her hip should’ve hurt quite a bit, but it was barely registering to her in her mind. She was too preoccupied with Gnert’s story. Her thoughts were circling around and around like a swarm of ringwats. She knew it had only been a fairytale, but at least some of it had to be true because she really had met a strange man that could do magical favors. And if some of it was true, she couldn’t help but wonder…

_The star is lonely down on the ground. It can’t ever go back where it came from._

She wanted to go home. “Is my order almost done?” she asked.

Gnert flinched, almost dropping the pot of coffee she was refilling. “Sorry. Let me check on that for you.”

Jay watched her go, and felt a funny tickle in her mind. “Actually,” she added, almost absentmindedly, “can you throw in a bar of candy with my order?”

Gnert looked surprised. “I can definitely do that. What kind would you like?”

“Uh…” Jay looked at the pile of candy against the far wall, and realized that she hadn’t eaten candy in a really long time. “Wow, I don’t know. Surprise me?”

Gnert nodded, and rushed off to gather Jay’s food. She was back a minute later, and Jay quickly paid for the meal and left. She could still feel the whole diner’s eyes on her as she walked out the door and down the street.

It wasn’t until she was a couple of blocks away that Jay realized what she’d done. She looked at the candy bar in her bag -- a Sneakers bar -- and slapped her forehead. What was she doing, spending hard-earned money on candy so she could call a guy she barely knew and wasn’t sure she could trust? What was she doing spending money on the chance... to have... a family again?

Jay stopped in her tracks. Was that really what this was? The chance to have a family again? She’d gone so long without anyone she could call family. Everyone she’d ever loved was dead -- or at least, in the case of her sister, probably dead. From what he’d told her, it sounded like he was in the same situation. If she was his chance to have a family again, maybe he was hers too.

Feeling her resolve strengthen, Jay rushed the rest of the way home. She dropped her meal onto her bed and clapped her hands in front of her computer. Her computer seemed to struggle to turn on, but eventually the screen illuminated and displayed the poem she’d started writing a few days. She felt like the breath was being squeezed out of her as she reread it.

_Harsh cold nights in the recesses of space  
_ _Plucked right out, leaving me without a trace_  
_Death defied, now she’s on her way back home  
_ _One last hope that I won’t be so alone_

She’d had her sister in mind when she’d written it, but as she turned Alcor’s words over in her head, she wondered if maybe it wasn’t about him instead. Maybe he was the family that she’d been hoping against hope for all of this time.

Jay took a deep breath, and made a decision.

There wasn’t very much space on the floor, but she managed to find a spot big enough for her to completely unfold the magic circle picture Alcor had given her. She arranged the candles so that they sat on the symbols that went around the edge. She activated the lighter on her phone and lit the candles one by one. Almost done. She looked around for the bag from the diner -- it was still on her bed. She reached in and grabbed the candy bar. It was light, but she felt out of breath anyway. She unwrapped it and dropped it into the center of the circle.

“Hey, Alcor,” she said, trying to sound confident. “I’ve thought about it. I want to give this a try.”

Instantly, all of the lights in the room went out. The candles lit up by themselves shortly after, but their flames were blue instead of yellow. A prickly presence came over her -- the fuzzy feeling she’d been having on and off for the past few days. And finally, a smile appeared in the middle of the room.

“Jay!” Alcor exclaimed. He hopped over the candles and wrapped her in a vice grip hug. “You mean it?”

The light gradually returned to the room, and in the light she was reminded of everything that was wrong. His positively ancient clothing, his pointed ears, his wings like windows into the sky. How was it possible that this was her brother? It didn’t make sense. This was madness. She couldn’t be doing this.

“Yeah,” she breathed. She hesitated for a moment, and then hugged him back. “Yeah, I mean it.”


	4. A Nice Day

“Good morning Jay!”

“Ack!” Jay yelped. The shout had brought her right out of her dream, and she jolted upright in surprise. Her head slammed into something hard and she yelped again. “What’s happening?”

“Oh no, I’m sorry!” replied a familiar voice. “I didn’t mean to, I just…”

The voice dissolved into wordless gibbering. Jay grabbed blindly at her night table for her glasses, not taking her eyes off the blurry blob in front of her. When she put them on, she was startled to find Alcor crouching over her.

“Alcor, what are you doing?” she yelled. “This is not appropriate!”

“I was just waking you up! Heh, my sister -- well, my _first_ sister -- used to do this to me all the time.” He stared off into the distance with a nostalgic look on his face, as if he’d forgotten that he was pinning someone to a bed with his body. “She’d glue googly-eyes to her chin and pretend there was an upside-down face on her face. It was… okay it wasn’t that funny, but in hindsight -”

“Alcor. This is weird and I don’t like it. Get off of me.”

“O-okay. Sorry!” He crawled off the bed and stood in the corner. “I’ll keep that in mind! No climbing on top of Jay in bed. Got it! What’s next?”

Jay rubbed her eyes. She glanced at the clock and groaned. “It’s only 9th trentile! Why did you wake me up?”

He drew farther back at the tone of her voice, and started fidgeting with the drawstring on the curtains. “Oh, uh, is that too early? Did you want to sleep longer?”

She sighed. “Yes. Yes, it’s too early. I don’t usually get up for another whole trentile. I’ve been losing so much sleep lately, and now I’m not going to be able to get back to sleep.”

He livened up. “No, wait, I can help with that actually! Just give me a second, uhh…”

Jay raised an eyebrow as Alcor attempted to untangle his claws from the drawstring he’d been playing with. There was a soft _snip_ , and the string fell to the floor. He met her eyes and winced in embarrassment. “I’ll fix that. Uhh…” He snapped his fingers, and the drawstring lifted off the floor and repaired itself. “See? Good as new!”

“Alcor, what are you -”

He snapped again, much louder this time, louder than she thought it should be possible to snap. The room seemed to vibrate in tune with the sound, and then everything froze. The clock stopped blinking, the tree outside stopped shaking, the curtain drawstring stopped swaying. Then the very color drained out of the room like paint on a heat plate, leaving her and Alcor alone in a still, monochrome world.

“What the?” Jay squeaked. She pulled the covers off and leapt out of bed. “What’s going on? What did you do?”

“Welcome to the Mindscape!” Alcor did a little bow, then looked up at her with a big smile on his face. “This is kind of where I live. It’s complicated.”

“The Mindscape? What’s the big setup? I thought you were going to help me sleep!”

He gestured at the bed. “You _are_ asleep!”

Jay turned around and gasped. There she was, lying in bed, motionless and colorless just like the rest of the world. “That’s… me!” she babbled. “But I’m right here! How the squick is this happening? Is this some of your magic man trickery? Is this an _It’s a Wonderful Life_ situation?”

Alcor gaped at her. “How in the everloving hell do you know what _It’s A Wonderful Life_ is?”

“Because it’s propaganda and the mining company makes us watch it every year?” At the flabbergasted look on his face, she crossed her arms and continued. “It’s about a man who wants to quit his job, but a ghost shows him visions of an alternate future where the entire planet’s devolved into anarchy because of his lost labor. It’s complete garbage but every year it makes me more and more hopeful that the anarchy part really will happen.”

“Okay, I can’t even start to explain how wrong that is, so I’m just going to move on. You’re dreaming right now. You’re really still lying in bed, we’re just in your mind right now.”

Jay’s mouth flapped open and shut wordlessly while his gleeful smile creased down into something more like concern. Eventually, she managed to get out, “You did this?”

“Yeah. I’m a dream demon. We’re really good at sleep magic. They don’t call me _The Dreambender_ for nothing!” He chuckled like that was meaningful in any way. “But uh… yeah. This means we can chat and you can still get some rest. It’s a win-win!”

“Listen, Alcor…”

“Yeah?” he asked, perking up like an excited kitten.

She shook her head. “Is this… normal? Did you do this with your sister -- your other sister I mean?”

“Oh, yeah! We’d hang out while she was asleep all the time. Dreams are the best! There are way fewer limits to my powers here in the Mindscape -- and that’s really saying something! Not that I’m _bragging_ or anything, although I guess I sort of am. I’ve got some great stories, seriously, like...”

Jay watched him pace around the room, waving his arms around emphatically, and pulling out of nowhere objects that carried neither familiarity nor meaning to her. Feeling her legs wobble, she sat back down on the bed, and bumped up against something soft but heavy. She looked over and flinched when she realized she was sitting on her own sleeping body. A picture of her in the real world, dreaming up this whole imaginary world.

She was still kind of freaked out by that. She wasn’t used to _knowing_ that she was in a dream. Somehow, knowing only made the entire experience feel more real. Or maybe that feeling was all Alcor’s doing. She glanced back at the strange man dancing around in her mind -- pulling different voices as he spoke to himself, flapping his otherworldly wings, gnawing those razor sharp teeth on a cube with colored stickers on the sides -- and she held her head in her hands. What was going on? Was this really going to work?

“Can we talk about this a minute?” she asked.

Alcor paused in the middle of his story, and a creepy talking owl-like toy fell out of his hands. “Yeah? What’s up?”

“This is all just… a little much.” She sighed, and patted on the bed for him to sit down. “I haven’t had any family for a long time. I haven’t had any _fun_ in a long time. I want to give this a try but I’m not sure I can just jump right into having magical goofabouts. I don’t- I don’t even really know you yet.”

“Oh, oh no, of course,” Alcor replied, eyes widening in understanding. He waved his hand, and the objects he’d been playing with vanished, although the room stayed monochrome, and he skipped over to sit beside her on the bed. “I’m sorry, I got carried away. I’m just so excited to have a sister again!”

“Heh. Yeah.” Jay heard decades-old screaming in her ear, saw the poison bubbling up and over the edges of the vat, felt the horrible chill on her skin when she realized there wasn’t enough of him left for them to bury. “I… I know the feeling. It’d be nice to have a brother again.”

Alcor nodded, and snapped his fingers again. The world seemed to warp strangely around her, and before she knew it, she was lying in bed. She opened her eyes and the room was in color again. Alcor was sitting in the same place as before, flashing her a massive smile. She couldn’t help but marvel how such a monstrous face could seem so innocent and cheerful.

“So,” he said, extending his hand to help her out of bed. “What should we do?”

Jay blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light, and then took his hand. “I don’t know. I could show you my daily routine, but it’s pretty boring and stupid and awful.” On her feet now, she shook her head to try to wake herself up more. “We could grab breakfast together before work. Do… do demons eat?”

“Oh yeah, we -- _I_ \-- eat all sorts of things.” His expression twisted, and that smile no longer seemed so playful. “But I’ll be fine, I don’t need to eat. I can just hang out with you. We’ll have a nice day!”

“Uh, okay. If you count working in a mine for ten trentiles to be ‘nice’.”

He waved her off. “Psshaw, we’ll make it fun. How bad could it be?”

* * *

“Jayyyyyyy, I’m sooooooo borrrrrrrrrreddddddddd.”

“Butts!” Jay shouted, dropping her axe in surprise. “Alcor, what are you _doing_ here?”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” Alcor replied calmly, as if a large, heavy object hadn’t just hit the ground loudly directly next to him.

“You’ve _what_?”

“Jay, are you alright?” called a voice from down the tunnel. “It sounds like something fell! Do you need some help?”

Jay’s mind raced at the thought of someone finding her talking to Alcor when she was supposed to be working. He looked like he was about to respond, so she clapped her hand to his mouth before he had the chance. “It’s fine, I just dropped my axe!” she yelled back. “Guess I’m just old -- haha! Always dropping things!”

There was a grunt. “Well, try to be more careful, I guess.”

Jay listened for the echoing footsteps indicating that the person had walked away, and then sighed. “If they catch me goofing off, I’ll get in trouble!” she hissed at Alcor. “What are you even -- _eugh_!” She cut herself off with a squeal as she felt something wet and slimy slide across her hand. She pulled it away from his face to see a transparent, yellow substance left behind, and a mischievous smile on the demon’s face. “Did you just lick my hand?”

“Sure did,” he said, clearly pleased with himself. “My sister used to do that to me all the time.”

“Really. Did your sister ever strangle you for almost getting her fired?”

“Yeah, she was working at a grocery store in college and _I_ thought she wasn’t being fairly compensated, so I may have given her manager some weirdly specific nightmares, and -”

Jay facepalmed. “Missing! The! Point! What are you doing here? I thought you decided not to come to work with me!”

“No, I turned invisible and followed you in. We’re hanging out! Although I’ve gotta say that this is pretty awful. Is this all you do all day?”

“Yes. I work and I work and then I get paid and then I go home.” She stooped over to pick up her axe. “You see this? It’s a quantum axe. I use it to drill that stuff over there.” She pointed at the blue veins coating the cave wall. “That’s cobalt. It’s really important but I have no idea why. All that matters is that they’ll give me money for doing this.” She raised the axe above her head and pressed a button on its side. A laser shot out of it and blasted a chunk of the wall away without damaging the cobalt, a small amount of which fell into a basket on the floor. “Any questions?”

Alcor rested his chin on his hand and leaned forward to study the cobalt. Jay watched him with narrowed eyes, and then a moment later gurgled aloud when she realized that his feet weren’t touching the ground -- he simply floated forward as if gravity had no impact on him at all. It shouldn’t have surprised her after everything else she’d seen him do -- plus, his hat seemed to permanently sit a few inches above his head -- but it was going to take her a while to get used to him just casually performing feats of magic she’d only ever dreamed possible.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “You’re not getting paid enough to do this. Not because it’s hard or anything, because there’s a ton of health risks involved. It’s wild that you’re still alive after so many years of breathing in this stuff. Now come on,” he added, tugging on her arm, “let’s get out of here.”

Jay’s forehead creased in frustration. “Alcor. Are you _listening_ to me? I. Need. To. Work.”

“This work is horrible. Come ditch it with me and we’ll get ice cream.”

“First of all, I have no idea what ice cream is. Second of all, if I leave now I’ll lose my job! Which would mean no money, and thus no food, and shortly after that no life!”

Alcor’s jaw dropped. “I can’t believe you don’t know what ice cream is. This is a travesty. We have to fix that.”

“You seriously need to leave right now -”

“No, Jay, listen.” He lifted his right hand, and a blue flame appeared in the palm. “Let’s make a deal.”

Jay jumped back -- her legs and back a symphony of cracks and pops. “What?”

“This work you have to do is terrible and it’s going to kill you,” he said, waving his hand around, trailing little blue wisps through the air. “But if you can promise to get me some tasty treats later, I can snap my fingers and all of your work for the day will be done. _And_ , I’ll make it so that no one notices you’re missing.”

She eyed the flame in his hand suspiciously. There it was again, that casual magic like it was so second-nature to him that he didn’t even realize he was doing it. “I- I don’t understand. Are you expecting me to know what you’re talking about?”

“I told you before. I can’t just do magic for you for free. You have to give me something in exchange. All I’m asking for is something sweet, like candy! That’s not unreasonable, right? Just agree to give me a few candy bars later, and then we shake hands to seal the deal -” (he reached out to her and the flame grew to cover his entire hand) “and voila! A fun day off with your new brother! How does that sound?”

“It sounds too good to be true,” she said carefully. “You can really do that? I’ll still get paid?”

“Yep!” He smiled wide, and it was such a warm and welcoming smile that it brought her back to when her real family would smile at her like that. “So, are you coming or not?”

Jay stared at the flame in his hand, then at the cobalt rubble in the bucket on the ground. She looked between the job that was working her to death, and the odd magic man who said he was her brother, and suddenly it didn’t seem like that difficult a decision to make.

“Okay.” She grabbed his hand and felt the flame spread to cover hers. She was expecting it to hurt, but to her surprise it felt like nothing more than a soft tickle. “Let’s get out of here.”

His grin grew even wider, starting to stretch the bounds of what a human face should be able to do. With his free hand, he snapped his fingers, and a large section of cave wall was carved out before her eyes, leaving behind a massive deposit of cobalt in the basket. She boggled at the sight, and he stuck his tongue out playfully in response.

“Now, hold on,” he said. “This part makes most people nauseous the first time.”

Before she could react, he jerked his hand back forcefully like when he had pulled her out of bed. This time, instead of ending up on her feet, she found herself wrenched out of space into a dark void. The cave fell away behind her, and in front of her was Alcor, soaring on wings that seemed much larger than they were only a minute ago. She felt perfectly still yet at the same time like she was moving at hyperspeed. It was like being in the Mindscape again, except her every sense was being overstimulated -- her heart was pounding, her ears were ringing, her hair was standing on end. She felt like she was going to scream.

And then it was over, and the two of them were standing on a brick road behind a building.

“Tada!” Alcor said, letting go of her hand and doing a little spin. “We’re here! How do you feel?”

Jay, bent over with her arms wrapped around her stomach, gave her best impression of a chuckle. “Oh, I’m just dandy. Never better, in fact.”

“Really? You’re looking a little green.”

Jay forced herself upright and pouted. “Not at all. Don’t know why anyone would have trouble with that.”

Alcor shrugged. “Well, I guess I usually meet up with Mizar when they’re pretty young. You’re tough, I like that.”

“Thanks.” Something he’d said prodded at her brain, but she ignored it. “Anyway, where are we?”

“Ooh, well, I haven’t been here before myself, but I consulted the ol’ omniscience and found a town that’s holding a fair today! We’ll make a day of it -- that’ll be fun, right? Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to find a place that wasn’t dark and depressing. Don’t let the outfit fool you, I’m not obsessed with darkness just because I’m a demon, seriously…”

“Wait wait wait,” Jay cut in. “Where are we? I thought we were just going outside.”

“Nope! We’re about halfway across the Earth from your hometown.”

She stared at him blankly. “What’s the Earth?”

“Oh, duh. Sorry, that’s the planet I’m from. I meant we’re halfway across Bezsinova.” A shadow passed over his face, and he suddenly seemed very far away. “You’d think I’d have gotten used to the fact that humans have spread themselves across the universe by this point but nope, it keeps slipping through the cracks.”

“Uh, okay,” she responded, raising an eyebrow. When he didn’t respond -- only continued to stare into space -- she waved a hand in front of his face. “United Life to Alcor, hello! Are we still doing this or what?”

Alcor shook his head, and the gleeful expression returned. “Yeah. Come on!”

He took her hand and led her around the building. On the other side was a row of shops with fanciful window displays and which didn’t look like they weren’t about to fall into bankruptcy. There were plenty of people bustling about, even though it was a work day. Further down the road, she could see tents and stands where people in colorful outfits were dancing or handing out toys.

It was the strangest thing Jay had ever seen, and she’d spent a significant time in the library reading about outer space. At least out in space things made sense. Here, it didn’t make sense that these people all seemed so… happy. Maybe it was only because she herself hadn’t felt happy in a very long time.

And as Alcor led her down the road, it seemed like everyone else thought _she_ was the strangest thing _they’d_ ever seen. Every face Jay passed turned to stare at her. Children pointed. Adults cut off mid-sentence and gasped.

“Wow, tough crowd,” Alcor said, elbowing her and chuckling. “Don’t worry. I’m used to it.”

“They’re looking at me,” Jay replied flatly. She glanced at her reflection in a store window, at the wrinkles lining her skin. “They’ve never seen anyone this old before.”

Alcor cocked his head. “Really? You don’t think it’s the guy with the wings and the floating hat?” He shrugged and pulled her into a tent. “Anyway, come on. You’ve gotta try this game. They had something like this back when I was a kid and trust me, it’s totally not a rip off.”

He pulled a strange-looking coin out of nowhere and slapped it down onto the counter. Jay looked around while he bickered with the worker about “what is and isn’t considered legal currency in these parts”. Behind the counter were a few stacks of plastic cups arranged into pyramids. There were assorted plush toys of varying sizes lining the walls and ceiling. A small child hugging а plush deer stared at her until an adult picked them up and hurried out of the tent, possibly to avoid getting hit by the excitedly flapping wings of the strange man arguing at the counter.

“Okay, that guy’s being a dink,” Alcor said, turning around, “but I got him to see reason. Let’s do this!” He handed her a ball and pointed at the pile of cups. “You’re strong, I’ve seen you lift that axe at work. Throw the ball at that stack of cups. If you knock them all down in one hit, you’ll win a prize!”

Jay’s arm was already aching from work that morning. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea…”

“Come onnnnnn,” Alcor whined. He grabbed a blue toy from the wall. “You’ve gotta win me this… plush hunk of cobalt…? What is _wrong_ with your planet?” He shook his head and put the toy back, then hunched over and started banging his fists on the counter. “Do it. Do it. Do it for me, Alcor. Win me the toy, Jay. Come on. Do it. _Doitdoitdoit_!”

Jay scowled. “Alright, alright, if it’ll make you quit your yapping.” He stood up straight with a big smile, and mimed zipping his lips shut. She looked at the ball and sighed. “Okay. Here goes.”

Taking a deep breath, she wound her arm back a few times, then threw the ball forward as hard as she could. It missed the stack of cups completely, instead bouncing off a pole, then off the ground, then out of the tent where it hit another pole, ricocheted back into the tent, bounced off the counter, and finally smacked Alcor right in the face.

“Augh, my eye!” Alcor howled in pain, curling up and clutching his hands over his face.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Jay yelped, panicking. She’d only been hanging out with her new brother for half a day and she’d already messed things up. “Alcor, are you okay?”

He didn’t respond at first -- only the labored wheezing of his breaths let her know that he hadn’t passed out. Then he unfolded and smiled at her again, a ball-shaped indent left in his face. “That. Was. Awesome!” he giggled. “Whoo, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt something like that! Pain is hilarious!”

Jay gaped at him. “What’s… going on here?”

“Heh, I’m fine, I’m fine. There’s not much that can actually hurt me.” He rubbed his face some more, and his ears started wiggling. “So most of the time it’s just fun! Does it look swollen?”

“It, uh, not really. Kind of the opposite actually.”

“Drat.” He closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and made a noise like he was straining himself to reach something on a high shelf. When he reopened his eyes, his right eye was dark and puffy. “How about now?”

Jay snorted. “Y-yeah, that’s much better. You're... ridiculous. And you’ve got a really weird array of powers.”

“And you’ve got great upper body strength!”

She punched him playfully on the shoulder, which made him grunt and murmur, “seriously ow.” He rubbed his arm and looked up at her with such a goofy look on his face that she burst into laughter.

“That was fun,” she said, and he smiled so wide she could almost swear his jaw was going to fall off. “What’s next?”

* * *

“You don’t have strawberry? You don’t have pistachio? What _do_ you have? Mint chocolate chip? _No?!?!_ ”

Jay stared at the glass case in front of her. It was filled with buckets of something that looked like if someone took milk and made it solid. It didn’t look entirely appealing, but she could tell from the way Alcor was pounding his fists on the counter in frustration that it meant a lot to him.

“Okay, Jay,” he said, poking her on the shoulder. “They don’t have as much variety as I’d hoped but you should still pick out a flavor.”

“Uh…” The weird names in front of the buckets meant absolutely nothing to her. “Vanilla, I guess?”

“Classic. Okay,” he said, turning back to the person behind the counter who at this point seemed very intent on getting Alcor to go away, “can we also get a vanilla cone? Thank you!”

After a minute, Alcor handed her a brown cone that was filled with the white stuff from the bucket. He led her to a table in the store, sat down, and watched her with an expectant expression on his face. “Go ahead, try it! Oh, and don’t bite it or anything -- you’ve gotta lick it off.”

Cautiously, she did as he said and gave her food a lick. Her eyes widened, and she continued until half of it was gone. “Oh, zoinks, this is delicious!”

“That,” he replied with a mischievous grin, “is _ice cream_. It’s the best! I was so heartbroken when you said you’d never had it before.” He started ravenously licking away at his own ice cream, which was dark brown and covered in small multicolored circles, and she noticed that his tongue wasn’t forked like it has been when he healed her wound.

“You were right. I was missing out.” She scarfed down the rest of her cone and gave him a big smile. “This was really fun. I had a great day hanging out with you.”

“Me too! I didn’t expect you to be so good at competitive boat rowing. We really showed those pesky kids who’s boss!”

She chuckled. “Yeah, and everyone kept letting us skip ahead in lines because I’m so old.” She paused to try to reconcile what she knew about Alcor with the giggling person with ice cream on his face that she could see in front of her. “I guess if anyone knew how old _you_ were, we’d never have to wait in line again.”

He stuck his tongue out. “Yeah, but they could also pass out. And if a _single person_ on your planet knew what a demon was, they might try to arrest us too.”

“They really didn’t like demons where you come from, huh?”

“Nope, but to be fair, they had a pretty good reason. Demons are awful.”

His eyes glazed over, and Jay frowned. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

He waved her off. “That’s alright. I’m used to it. I’m just happy you had a good time today. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a sister to hang out with.”

“Yeah. I never even dreamed I’d have a brother again. Today’s been so much better than any dream I’ve had in a long time.”

Alcor opened his mouth and let out a loud, warbling noise that Jay was pretty sure meant he was happy. She covered her ears in faux annoyance, but gave him another friendly punch on the shoulder when he stopped.

“So,” he said after a pause. “I got you to try ice cream. And I got some too, so our deal is fulfilled. I think it’s been a pretty good day. Want me to take you home now?”

Jay bit her lip. Oh yeah. She’d forgotten she had to go back home eventually -- back to a place that seemed so overwhelmingly despondent and futile now that she’d had a few trentiles of freedom from it. For once, she’d gotten to spend time in Prima’s rays instead of in a mine all day. For once, she’d been able to breathe freely without that awful tickle in the back of her throat from inhaling cobalt particles. For the first time in decades, she’d had _fun_ , and she wanted to figure out something -- anything -- they could do to push off going home a little longer.

And then the perfect thing occurred to her.

“Come on,” she said, getting up and pulling Alcor out of the shop by his arm.

He yelped and almost fell over, but his legs caught up pretty quickly. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” They’d been at the fair for a long time, and Prima was starting to set over the horizon. There were far fewer people around than there had been when they’d arrived, although most of the tents seemed to be waiting for the star to completely set before they packed up and left. At the end of the row of tents, Jay spotted it. The first game they’d done that day -- the ball toss.

“What are you doing?” Alcor asked. “We already did this -”

“Give me a coin,” she said, cutting him off. “I’m gonna win you that toy. No brother of mine is going home toyless today.”

Wordlessly, he handed her a coin. She slapped it onto the counter, and the carnival worker glared at her. “You only get one chance,” they said, handing her a ball. “Then you’ve gotta go.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. She flashed Alcor a thumbs up, before winding her arm up again to throw. “And a-one and a-two and a-three!”

Jay threw the ball, and knocked down an entire stack of cups. The ball then bounced off of a pole into the ground, then sprung up, got intercepted and deflected in mid-air by one of Alcor’s flapping wings, bounced off the counter itself, and finally hit the carnival worker smack in the head.

Alcor gasped as the worker passed out behind the counter. It took Jay a moment to even parse what had happened, but by that time, Alcor had rushed past her, jumped over the counter, and picked up the carnival worker.

“They’re okay,” Alcor said. “They’re gonna wake up with a killer headache, but they’ll be fine. Did you do that on purpose?”

“Honest to betsy, I swear I didn’t! It was a goof-up!” She stared at her hands, curling and uncurling her fingers. “I just wanted to win that toy.”

“My uncle taught me that the secret to these games was to aim for the carnie's head, and take the prize when they’re unconscious. Looks like that really works!” His chuckle fell away at Jay’s horrified expression. “Look, it’s fine. The worker is fine, and you won the toy. Nothing to worry about!”

Jay watched Alcor prop the worker up against the counter and pat them on their head. She smiled, and reached up to grab a large plush hunk of cobalt. When Alcor crossed the counter, she shoved it into his arms and elbowed him in the gut.

“Right, you jokester. Nothing to worry about.” Her smile faded as she thought about going back to her job. She watched Alcor hug the toy she’d won him before accidentally slicing it open with his claws, and she cleared her throat. “Hey. This was really fun. If it’s not too forward -- heck, I’ve never _gained_ a sibling before -- do you think… we could hang out again tomorrow?”

Alcor dropped the now-shredded toy, and hugged Jay tight. “Course we can, as long as you get me more sugary treats tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” she said, and even though Prima had just dipped below the horizon, the world felt brighter. “I think I can handle that.”


	5. Left Hook

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a few days late, but happy 6th birthday to the Transcendence AU!

“Goodness me, what a long work day that was!” Jay warbled as she walked into the mine’s lobby. “I got so much done, I sure can tell you!”

Kanif watched her wheel in a hoverdolly stacked with cobalt, and narrowed his eyes. “So I see.”

“It’s patently ridiculous,” she continued, wiping her brow with a gloved hand and then starting to shovel cobalt into the chute. “Jay Rhysti-Du, mining this much cobalt? But you’re just an old lady! It’s unbelievable!”

“I get it, you’re nonchalant,” Kanif grumbled. “Just deposit your day’s quota and be off.”

Jay shrugged and continued shoveling, feeling Kanif’s eyes on her the whole time. When she finished, she pushed her hoverdolly into the closet and placed her mining equipment into a separate chute. She then turned to Kanif with a bright smile and extended her hands.

“You know what day it is!” she trilled.

Kanif sneered at her, but said nothing. He stepped behind the counter and retrieved an envelope from a drawer. “Here’s your paycheck. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Jay snatched it out of his hands and turned around to leave. “I’ll try not to! Have a nice night!”

“Just a minute,” he barked, and she froze mid-step. Oh no. Maybe she’d been going a bit overboard with that routine.

“What’s the matter, sir?” she asked without turning around.

He didn’t respond for a minute, and all she could hear was his breathing -- long, strangely labored breaths like he’d been running a great distance. When he did speak, there was a note of anxiety in his voice. “You’ve been… you’ve been doing good work lately, Rhysti-Du.”

Now she did turn around, just to make sure it was actually _Kanif_ who’d said that. “Uh… thank you, sir?”

He nodded, and Jay couldn’t help but notice how his eyes kept flitting to the empty space to her left. “Yes. Very good work. I just want to make sure everyone in here knows that -- knows that _I_ think that. You understand?”

“I… do? I guess?”

He coughed. “Good. Go, then. Don’t forget to deposit that check.”

Gawking, Jay almost asked him out loud who he was and what he had done with the real Kanif. Instead, she gave him a nod and walked out of the mine without another word.

The sky was a deep orange when Jay got outside. It was early enough that she had plenty of time before Prima would dip below the horizon -- one of the benefits of not being kept late at the mine. That in itself was one of the benefits of having a demon brother that could snap his fingers and get her out of work.

She started on her usual walk home, but quickly diverted into a side street once she’d passed the town center. There he was, right on schedule -- a foreboding figure emerging from the shadows with few discernible features apart from a pair of piercing gold eyes. Only a week ago, the same encounter had put her right into attack mode. But things were different now, and Jay instead skipped up to him -- not having skipped a single time in possibly decades -- and gave him a hug.

“Hey Alcor!” she chirped. “Nice to see you!”

The figure smiled, and the darkness fell away from his body. “You too! Did you have a good rest?”

Jay’s smile grew, and she stretched like she was just waking up. “It was perfect! Thanks for making that deal with me. I can’t believe I just got to snooze all day instead of going to work. I really needed to catch up on my sleep after we went to that all-trentiles arcade the other night.”

“Mmm, yeah. That was pretty funny until you fell asleep on top of the pinball machine.” He drummed his fingers along the brim of his hat. “And then it was hilarious.”

“Hey!” She socked him on the shoulder -- rather lightly in her opinion, but he still had to massage the spot with his other hand. “Easy talk for someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to be tired. Falling asleep at the arcade is one thing, but if someone saw me sleeping at work it’d be a super different story. And I think my manager is getting suspicious. He was acting really weird when he gave me my paycheck today.”

“Oh, yeah,” Alcor said with a snicker. “That was me.”

Jay blinked. “What was you?”

“Your manager! I’ve been making sure he doesn’t bother you.” Preening, he flipped his shirt collar out and made strange, indecipherable gestures into the air. “Just some mild emotional torture, classic demon fear tactics, standard stuff. I haven’t actually hurt him or anything yet, but you don’t have anything to worry about. He won’t be messing with you as long as I’m around.”

“Oh.” She paused, unsure whether she was okay with her brother making her manager fear for his life. Then she remembered how ready and excited Kanif was to fire her for making a single mistake, and all compassion went out the window. “Uh, thanks. That’s great.”

“Hey, no problem! It’s what I do!” Alcor snapped his fingers, and a blue flame appeared in his palm. “Speaking of which, we should get going. I’ve got a few ideas for where we can hang out tonight, and -”

“Actually,” Jay cut in, a sheepish look on her face, “I’ve got an idea of my own.”

Alcor raised his eyebrows in surprise and retracted his hand. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! I mean, it’s been a hoot getting to know you and going all around the world. You’ve shown me so much stuff I never even knew existed in the last few days. But that sort of got me thinking about, uh…” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Sorry, this is weird.”

“Whatever it is, you can say it. Trust me, I’ve heard a lot of weird requests in my life.”

“Oh. Yeah. The whole magic man thing.” She opened her eyes, and the face she saw when she did was filled with an odd mixture of warmth and concern that she hadn’t seen in a long time. The ache in her chest got a little worse. “I was thinking we could visit my parents’ house.”

“Oh! Nostalgia!” His smile brightened. “Piece of cake. There’s a lot of stuff on this planet that I don’t get, but I know all about wanting to revisit a memory. Let’s go!”

She took his outstretched hand on autopilot and felt that familiar but still kinda unsettling jolt as she was torn out of reality. The world went blurry, there was a rushing in her ears, and her stomach lurched when she hit the ground again, but then it was over and she was there, standing in front of the house she’d grown up in. Jay felt like she was in a daze even seeing it -- an eternity of time separated her from that house and yet all of a sudden it was right there in front of her.

Alcor whistled. “Wow. This place is a dump.”

‘Dump’ was a bit of an understatement. The house was a small cube crammed in a line of other similar-looking cubes, all of which were in various states of disarray. It clearly had once supported a second floor, but that had caved in long ago. There was glass on the sidewalk from where the windows had blown out, and there were scorch marks on the walls.

The most obvious issue, however, was the whirlwind of dust the house seemed to be enveloped in.

“Yeah, I should’ve mentioned!” Jay yelled over the noise of the storm. “This whole region’s been condemned for 40 years, ever since the mining company accidentally blew up this big underground cave filled with gas!”

“Mm. I doubt it was an accident, but whatever.” A crack of thunder ripped through the sky, but Jay could still hear Alcor’s voice echo in her head clear as day. “Want to go in?”

“Will it -” she started, and then had to pause to cough out the dust that was accumulating in her throat. “Is the roof going to collapse if we go in?”

“Nah. We’ll be fine. Are you, uh, okay?”

Jay -- her hair and work clothes billowing out from the intensity of the wind -- could only hack and sputter in response.

Alcor frowned and snapped his fingers. The dust froze in the air, suspended like raisins encased in gelatin. The wind stopped howling too, and a bolt of lightning could be seen in the distance, painted against the dark backdrop of the sky. Alcor seemed pleased by this, but not a moment later he was cringing and falling to his knees, causing Jay to panic.

“Dude, are you okay?” The frozen particles of dust felt weird on her skin as she rushed through them to help Alcor -- it was almost like she was swimming.

“I’m fine,” he wheezed, “it’s just -- ouch -- that was a pretty big spell and I did it without a deal.” With Jay’s help, he got to his feet and took a deep breath in, not seeming to care that he was sucking in a lot of dust as he did so. “I’m not supposed to do selfless magic without getting something in return -- it takes a lot out of me. But I’ll be fine, seriously.”

Jay watched him shift with clear discomfort. He seemed paler than usual and his breathing still sounded affected. “You sure you don’t want some candy?”

“Um… yes. Yes I want it now. That sounds really good.”

She fished around in her pockets -- her work uniform had a lot of them but they were all mostly empty -- until she found the Sneakers bar she’d packed for later. Alcor’s bright yellow irises dilated at the sight of it. Amused, Jay watched him scarf it down once it was out of her hands. She was about to crack a joke when he suddenly started retching.

“Oh f- heck, Alcor!” Jay yelped. “Are you alright? Was that bad candy?”

He pounded on his chest with both hands until the retching died down, and then bent over, breathing heavily. “No no, no! It was great! But the time freeze spell is gonna keep using energy while it’s up. Like I said, I can handle it! It won’t -” (and then he had to pause to cough for a whole minute) “- permanently hurt me.”

Jay’s face crumpled. “Dude, if it’s making you sick then cut it out! Even if you’re gonna be okay. I don’t- I don’t like seeing you this way.”

His eyes flicked toward the house in the background. “But what about your nostalgia trip?”

“Forget it! Another time -- when the weather’s better or we make an actual deal. There are other places I wanna go tonight anyway.”

* * *

“Here we are!” Jay announced, waggling her hands for emphasis. “Stop number 2 on the local Bezsinova Tour!”

She let go of Alcor’s hand and dashed forward without even waiting for a response. Beyond the sign labeled “LOT #138” was a moderately sized park with a few trees, a few benches, and a swingset. Jay stood in the center and spun around, laughing all the while. She had to stop a moment later when the blood rushed to her head and threatened to bring her tumbling to the ground.

She tumbled to the ground anyway, because it was fun.

“It’s a playground!” Alcor observed, following her at a more leisurely pace. He already seemed back to normal health, simply from stopping the spell.

“Yep!” Back on her feet, Jay ran over and plopped herself into a swing. “This’ll be more fun than a stupid dust bowl. Only good vibes allowed in Fun Land!”

She pushed off, laughing heartily at the feeling of being airborne. It had been a long time since she’d last been on a swing set, but she still remembered how to do it: grip the chains, stretch legs out, then curl them back, stretch them out, then curl them back, rising higher and higher each time.

This lasted about four minutes before Jay’s stomach lurched and demanded to be let down. Grumbling, she kicked her feet into the sand and instead swung idly back and forth near the ground.

“This used to be a lot easier,” she said. “Used to be able to get really high up. Is this an old people thing? I bet it’s an old people thing. What do you th- hey, what are you staring at?”

Alcor was sitting on a bench next to the swing set, chin on his fist, watching her with a goofy smile. He’d removed his hat and suit jacket, making him look younger and more relaxed than she’d ever seen him.

“You, of course,” he replied. “You’re having a nice time. It makes me happy.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t get how you can be happy sitting over there on the bench like a total bore. Come swing with me!”

“Ehhh maybe not, I haven’t done it in a few thousand years.”

“Come onnnnnn,” she drawled. “You think I’ve been anywhere near a swing in the last 50 years? The novelty’s what makes it fun! Get your spooky butt over here and swing with me!”

“Alright, alright!” Smirking, he got up and sat on the swing next to her. “I probably won’t be any good at this, but…”

Alcor began doing the same leg back-and-forth she’d been doing, but with dramatically different effect. He practically flew forward, zooming higher and higher with each cycle, leaving a path of sparkles in his wake. Jay stared at him with her jaw dropped as he did one more thrust forward and ended up going all the way over and _around_ the top of the swingset. The mess in her stomach twinged again at the thought.

“You’re right, this is fun!” he gushed as he slowed. Jay noticed his wings flapping -- one of them almost hit her on the way down. “Ahhh, you always surprise me, Mizar.”

_Jay_ , she almost said, but she held back out of curiosity. “What do you mean?”

His shoes touched the ground, and almost all of his momentum was eaten at once. “I mean, you’ve got a demon for a brother. We could’ve gone anywhere and done anything, but you wanted to go to an old playground and swing on the swings.” Coming to a complete halt, he tossed her a warm smile. “Sometimes you remind me so much of her.”

Jay cocked her head. “Her?”

A shadow passed over Alcor’s face, and suddenly Jay felt like he wasn’t looking at Her anymore. “Mabel. My sister. The person whose soul you have.”

“Mabel?” The name tasted utterly alien on Jay’s tongue. “This is the sort of thing she’d do?”

“Definitely.” He kicked off his dress shoes and dug his toes into the sand. “Reincarnated souls aren’t the same people as the ones who came before, but every now and then I notice traces. Similarities. Patterns. Maybe it’s just me projecting.”

“...What was she like?”

Alcor leaned back on apparently nothing and folded his hands behind his head. “She was… incredible. The best person I’ve ever met. She believed in me when no one else did. And she was so much fun. Even in her old age there was never a dull moment in the house. She wasn’t afraid to do stuff that people thought was ‘childish’ -- was proud of it, even. She was strong, courageous, filled to the brim with love… I admired that. I admire it in you too. You’re not awful like me.”

“Uh. I don’t know if I’m really all like that.” Jay thought about the dream from a week ago, thought about how good it had felt to grab Kanif’s head and squeeze squeeze squeeze until it _popped_. She tried getting up, but her stomach was still too queasy from swinging. “And anyway. I don’t think you’re awful.”

Alcor chuckled. “Yeah, she used to say that too. Then she’d say my big dumb sadface is a downer and she’d rope me into some crazy hysterical scheme. Her and all the other humans that put up with me. Stan, Ford, Henry, Acacia, Hank, Willow, Pacifica, Candy and Grenda, Wendy, Soos…”

“How come you had so many human friends? Is that normal for a demon?”

He sat up, and there was fear on his face for a moment before he could mask it with a shrug. “Uh, well. Humans are nice. I love humans. Demons suck, like I said before. I can’t stand being around other demons. And they’re all afraid of me anyway.”

There was that funny feeling in Jay’s stomach again. “Afraid?”

Alcor looked away. “Yep.”

He didn’t say anything more, didn’t seem to want to make eye contact with her. His toes stopped wiggling around, too. Jay paused, shivering a bit in the evening air.

“What happened to her?” she asked eventually. “To Mabel?”

He sighed, the motion sounding old and tired. He picked his feet out of the sand and there were long, dark claws on his toes now. He pulled his knees to his chest, somehow not falling off the swing in the process.

“The thing about being a demon and having human friends,” he said, “is that I’m immortal and they’re not.” The wind picked up a bit as he spoke, and another chill ran through Jay’s body. “I loved them all so much, and then they died. Then I made new friends, and I loved them too, and then they died. I’ve watched so many people I care about die, over and over again, and been powerless to do anything about it. Sometimes I’m not even sure it’s worth caring about new people if they’re just going to break my heart in the end.”

He buried his face in his knees. “But you wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

At that, Jay finally summoned the strength to get out of the swing. Her head was filled with thoughts about her family, her friends, her partners -- of seeing them lowered into the ground or scattered to the wind like dust. About how she didn’t know a single person besides Alcor who’d lived to be even half her age. About the curtain of death always hanging there, the one she’d known about since she was a little girl and it fell on Mom, then it fell on Dad, then it fell on her brother, and then, and then, and then…

She put a hand on Alcor’s shoulder, and he looked up at her. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

* * *

The two of them materialized in an open field beneath a star-speckled sky. There was little evidence of civilization -- only the murky outline of the spaceport in the distance reminded Jay that this wasn’t a dream. Despite the lack of people, the air was abuzz with noise: preying ladybugs and rhyming wingaloos chirping and chattering their little tunes to one another.

Jay felt like she could sing, too. It’d been a while since she’d visited this spot.

“Huh, I don’t see anything,” Alcor hummed. “Did I bring us to the wrong place? Grab my hand again.”

“Nope!” Jay interjected. Careful of her creaking joints, she lowered herself to the ground and motioned for him to do the same. “This is it.”

She laid down with her arms folded behind her head -- much harder now than it once had been, and much less comfortable too, but worth it all the same. Beside her, she could hear Alcor do the same. She sucked a breath in through her mouth, then out through her nose, trying to see if she could taste the past in its gentle sighs.

“It’s pretty,” she said finally, when no words of appreciation came from her brother. “The stars, up there. They’re gorgeous, and you can’t see them like this from town where there’s lights and junk everywhere.”

“Oh. True,” he said, a solemn note to his voice. He didn’t sound convinced.

“You don’t like it.”

“No! No, it’s pretty.” His wings fluttered against the ground, and Jay remembered seeing the night sky reflected in them. “It’s just I’ve been up there.”

“Oh. What?”

“Yeah. I’ve been up there a lot. I’ve seen every kind of star, inside and out, seen ‘em be born and seen ‘em die. I used to think the stars were beautiful, just like you, just like... Mabel, but now it’s less. They remind me of what I can’t have.”

A memory of Gnert in the diner floated through Jay’s head. _They say a demon is a star that fell out of the sky and has to live on the ground like a person._

There was a creeping sensation on her neck, but she made herself stay as still as possible. “What you can’t have?”

“I can’t really explain it.” Alcor rolled over and propped himself up on one elbow. “It’s just, the time when I could look at the stars and appreciate how wonderful and cool they are is long gone. I’ve changed too much.”

“Oh.” This wasn’t going how she expected. She took another deep breath and decided to keep going anyway. “I used to come here a long time ago with people I really cared about. It felt nice to share it with them. I wanted to share it with you too.”

He inhaled deep and loud, seeming to go way longer than a person should be able to. She wondered why he wasn’t picking up on the hints she was dropping, and glanced at him just in time to see him let out a huge, ground-shaking belch.

Horrified, he clapped a hand to his gaping mouth, his every muscle cringing with embarrassment. His shoulders stayed suspended a few inches off the ground despite his elbow no longer being there as a support.

“Sorry!” he blurted, voice unhindered by the hand over his mouth. “I just- the air here is so rich with sentiment. It’s intoxicating. This place really means a lot to you.”

“Dude, stop it with the weird magic man bodily functions,” she replied, a little curt.

Alcor removed his hands from his face and laid back down. “I’m glad you showed me,” he said, softly. “Even if it doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to you.”

Jay took a deep breath. “No, sorry. It’s dandy and all, like don’t hesitate to chow off on my memories and all that type of shindig. It’s why I brought you here.”

There was a rustle, and suddenly his hand was squeezing hers. “You want to tell me about them? Your loved ones?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” she murmured. Closing her eyes, she conjured up images of a different night, before Alcor, before the wrinkles on her skin, even before she was regularly visiting people in the hospital.

“I had three partners,” she said. “We all met around the same time when we were teenagers. We moved in together not long after that and I thought it was going to last forever… but obviously it didn’t.”

“Three? That’s… cool.” He said it like he was unsure of whether it actually was cool or not. “Lots of love to go around and stuff.”

“Yes, it was sky-high, now shush,” she retorted. “There was Evan. We bumped into each other collecting rocks, yknow, for fun. He threw a rock at me because he thought I was trying to steal this really big rock he found and I got a big cut on my arm. You can still see the scar from it! But talking to him ended up being more fun than picking up rocks and we sorta started seeing each other all the time.

“He was really funny -- made me laugh all the time. I remember he really wanted to save up enough credits to buy a guitar because he liked the sounds they made. Silly dream, I guess, but I liked his passion. He had another girlfriend named Ylaia and two ex’s before us, which was crazy to me because I’d never really had a crush before I met him. Maybe I shoulda guessed he’d flake out in the end.”

Alcor sniffed. “He what?”

Jay ignored him. “Then there was Sunil. His parents were kind of rich -- not like Mining Company Investors, but they both had admin jobs and made a whole lot more money than anyone else I knew. They had a house in the nice village, and a car too! That’s sorta how I met him.” She had to pause to stifle a giggle. “His parents hit me with their car.”

Alcor bolted up. “Excuse me?”

“Yep! It was an accident, and I was fine, but everyone came running over, including Sunil, and he helped me onto my feet with his noodly arms and it was like the cheesy love scene in the capitalist propaganda films they show at work all the time because I took one look into his eyes and fell buckwheat in love.”

“Eugh!” Nose wrinkled, Alcor spat something out and laid back down. “You’re right, that _is_ really cheesy. That memory’s so saccharine I can barely stomach it!”

Jay smiled. “Yeah. He was really shy, and his parents were scary as pants, but when we were together away from his parents it was like another side of him came to life. I learned so much stuff from him too, stuff I’d never gotten access to before because we were so poor. He’s the one who got me interested in writing, actually.” Her smile faded away. “Sucks that his parents disowned him when they found out we were dating.”

Alcor squeezed her hand again. “That does suck.”

“It does, and I think it made stuff kinda awkward for a while. Then when it came time to choose between me and Evan, I wasn’t really surprised when he…”

Jay trailed off, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She felt something weird bubble up inside her and it felt weird and gross like regret.

“You okay?” Alcor asked, on his side again. “I feel like this is just making you sad.”

She waved him off. “No, no, lay off a second. I’m not done. I still need to tell you about her.”

“Her?”

Jay looked up at the stars and pictured a beautiful comet streaking across the night sky. “Akko.”

“Akko?”

“I met her at work. Well, teenagers were only allowed to work half shifts, so technically I met her during overtime, but still. She misread her quota instructions and was mining cobalt in my spot and I was so ready to brawl it out but when I confronted her she just... did this little giggle and walked off?”

Jay swallowed. Tried to ignore the increasingly loud _thud thud thud_ in her ears. “So obviously I ran after her! Like, no one in a cobalt mine’s that nice to you when they realize they made extra work for themself. I had to see what was up. Oh also she was _lunar_ gorgeous, even with dirt all over her face and in the awful work uniform. It was, uh, kind of intimidating. But I caught up with her and we talked and… we clicked.”

“Like Henry,” Alcor muttered.

Jay frowned. “Like who?”

“You’re supposed to fall in love with… nevermind.” He sighed and let go of her hand. “I’m being dumb again. You wanna tell me more about Akko?”

Something was up -- something was always up with him, she was beginning to realize -- but she put it out of her mind and focused on the sky. It felt like it was getting bigger somehow, like it was readying itself to swallow her whole. A ship had just taken off from the spaceport and was whizzing through her sightline, becoming smaller and smaller until it was just a concept, an idea. A long-dead hope to one day touch the stars for real.

A deep breath. “Akko lived on the other side of the governance and it took both of us ages to walk to work everyday, so we kind of took things slow. We only really saw each other at work for a while, but then we started spending time at each other’s houses and stuff. She met Evan and Sunil and fell in love with them too. She and I got married and it was the happiest day of my life. Then…”

One-by-one the stars above winked out of existence in sync with her beating heart, little pinpricks of light suffocated by the vast emptiness that surrounded them.

“She died.”

Alcor didn’t say anything. When she looked over, his face was unreadable, but his clasped hands were trembling.

“She, um. She was sick. From the cobalt. Well, everyone was sick, but she got it so much younger than everyone else.” Her lips were chapped. She licked them but it turned out her throat was just as dry. “It was like what you were saying. About having to watch someone you love die and know you’re going to have to keep going.”

“On and on and on,” he said softly. “Til their lives are so short you can barely react to it. Til you’re not even sure why you keep trying.”

Jay’s forehead creased. “I- yeah. Something like that.”

“But you kept trying.”

“You better believe it, buddy.” Clutching her head, she sat up and stared at the grass between her legs. “I never gave up on her. We were together until the end. And I tried everything. I even- I even came right here with her one night and made a wish on a shooting star that she’d get better. I was _that_ desperate.”

To Jay’s surprise, there was a loud clap beside her, followed by a chuckle. “Ohhhhhhh! That’s who you were summoning me about!”

Jay’s head snapped up to stare at the demon. He had his hands folded behind his head now, looking as cozy as he did on the swing with his feet in the sand. “What?”

“That time you summoned me. Like a while ago. There was someone else there with you.” He sat up now, too, and gave her a satisfied look like he’d just cracked some age-old secret code. “I was sorta wondering who that was, but I never got the chance to ask.”

Gnert’s voice was in Jay’s head again. _You know how you can go wish on a star? They say that’s because stars are made out of magic. And that means demons are too._

It felt like someone was lobbing rocks at Jay’s skull. “I don’t- I don’t know what you’re saying. I wished on a shooting star.”

“Yeah, it was a really indirect summons. Felt like you didn’t actually know how to summon a demon properly -- well, now I know you didn’t.” He snapped his fingers and the image of a comet appeared in the sky, huge and overbearing, feeling like it was about to fall down onto them. “But it’s the thought that matters, and you were wishing really really hard about that person. Hard enough that I could hear you. I didn’t realize who you were until later though. But better late than never, right?”

“ _You_ were the comet?” Jay sputtered. The pounding in her ear got worse and she scrambled awkwardly to her feet. “Wait a minute -- you heard my wish 50 years ago and you did _nothing_?”

“Um. Yes, I guess?” Alcor slowly stood up as well, his expression morphing like he wasn’t sure where this was going. “Look, I get a lot of summons, and I was trying to take a nap. Then when I woke up, I remembered the summons and figured out who you were. Took me a while to track you down again but here I am!” He gulped, looking more and more uneasy under Jay’s furious stare, and sweat started dripping from his brow despite himself. “And we’ve been having a good time together, right?”

_The demons try to trick people by giving them nice things and doing favors with their magic._

“You. You, Mr. Magic Man.” The ground was shuddering beneath Jay’s feet as she took a step toward him. “You _heard_ me wish that everything would be okay.” Every bug in the area went silent so her fury could fill the air. “You can grant wishes, and you heard me wish that my loved ones would be safe, that _Akko would survive_ …!” Her fists were clenched so tight they felt like they would explode.

Alcor was practically cowering now. His wings, smaller than before, drooped by his legs, scared and pathetic. His teeth seemed duller now, his claws less intimidating. There was no way the man in front of her could possibly hurt her more than he already had.

“I mean, I didn’t hear what you were wishing! Just that you summoned me. If I’d’ve known I probably would have…” He flinched at the glare she shot him, and backed up some more. “But it’s okay now, isn’t it? We have each other! We don’t have to be lonely anymore!”

_Well, the star is lonely down on the ground. It can’t ever go back where it came from. It misses its family in the sky so bad that it turns to wickedness._

“You let her die,” Jay said, so quiet she could barely hear herself. “You let her die so I’d be alone just like you.”

“I- what?” he asked.

Without a second thought, Jay swung her left arm forward and punched Alcor in the face.

His skin felt like a steel wall on her knuckles, which exploded into pops and cracks of white hot pain that traveled up her arm and through her shoulder and she wanted to _scream_ but she was already screaming, wasn’t she? He flew backwards almost comically, like a character in an animated children’s propaganda film, shooting further away than made sense and digging out a divot in the ground that came up to his waist.

For a minute, he could only sit there and stare at his hands. Then his mouth opened and he made a noise that made Jay’s blood boil even more. It was a little giggle -- a quaint, innocent sound. He giggled like he’d just been told a marvelous joke, and that sound grew and grew until it was a cackle, cutting through the air with an otherworldly echo that grated like static. His hand flew to his forehead to steady himself, pushing back his bangs to reveal a deep purple bruise around his eye and bloody scratches from his claws.

He laughed and laughed, and as he did whatever facsimile of personhood he’d had seemed to peel away. His teeth looked sharper and his aura darker, and all Jay could think of was Gnert’s voice saying _And then right when you’re not expecting it… BAM! They gobble you right up!_

But she wasn’t afraid of that. Not anymore.

“Whoo!” he finally managed to get out between guffaws. He paused to spit out a tooth, despite Jay’s fist not having landed near his mouth. “That- that was _incredible_. Way better than getting hit in the face by the carnival ball. I knew you were strong but _damn_. I haven’t felt this bad in ages!”

He looked up at her and the cackle died on his lips. His smile turned lopsided. Jay could see herself reflected in his dark, glassy eyes -- her, and the massive image of the comet looming in the sky behind her.

“Um,” he said, much more subdued. “I mean. Ouch? You, uh. You punched a demon. Why did you do that?”

“It’s your fault my life fell apart!” Jay roared, making him flinch. “It’s your fault Akko died and then Evan and Sunil left me and I ended up fending for myself completely alone for _decades_! You wanted me to be just as lonely as you so you could scoop me right up and be your perfect sister!”

Alcor’s face twisted in bewilderment. “What? I didn’t- I never planned this! I don’t even know who Akko is!”

Jay’s cheeks felt wet, and she realized there were tears streaming down her face. “Of course you don’t even care about her -- you only care about _your_ precious loved ones! And you’ll never be able to know her because she’s _dead_ and it’s all your fault!”

“No! I was just taking a nap! None of this was on purpose!”

Jay fell to her knees, and despite the soft ground it sent a shockwave of pain through her core. “My wife is dead because my magic man brother was taking a nap. My _wife_. Is _dead_. Because. This awful awful jerk who dares to call himself my brother…”

She curled up with every word until they faded out and she was a tightly wound ball on the grass. The air was quiet again. Unsettlingly peaceful. Alcor, grimacing and looking everywhere but at Jay, slowly attempted to approach her.

“Can we talk about this?” he asked, his voice cracking on the word ‘talk’. “I um. I think there’s been a misunderstanding here.”

“Go away.”

Alcor stopped moving and put his hands up. “Are you sure -”

“Go away, go away, go away!” Jay shrieked. “If you’re not going to fix things then just get! The _fuck_! Away from me!”

He startled at her shout, hopping back and ending up midair. There were tears in his eyes now too, but they seemed to Jay just as fake as he did. He reached an arm out toward her -- tried to say something, but it got caught in his throat and just came out as a feeble croak. Then he deflated -- his every limb falling as if his joints had turned to butter -- and disappeared a moment later.

Jay shifted so she was lying flat on her stomach, her face shoved into the dirt, letting the cold numb her senses. Her mind raced with thoughts, questions, pleas and demands. Alcor, her so called brother. Liar. Manipulator. Sunil and Evan. Exhausted. Heartbreaker. Her parents, her siblings. Life and love and death with its arms all around her. Akko…

Akko. Akko in the mine, the day they met. Akko with a broken teacup at the one café in town. Akko in a white dress the day they got married. Akko in the hospital, once, twice, again and again and again. Alcor could have stopped it. Alcor could have saved her.

She knew the weird magic brother from outer space had to be too good to be true.

Jay got up, the cold finally getting to her. She looked over and out at the spaceport again, waiting to see if another ship would take off, flying up and out to take some lucky soldiers up to the stars. When it didn’t, she sighed and started the long walk back home.

It was quiet; far, far too quiet. Not a chirping bird nor a squealing wingaloo to be heard. Not a starship nor comet to be seen. Not a comforting hand on her shoulder giving her hope that things could be better even after all the hurt of the past. As she walked, step by step, aching joint by aching joint, Jay felt more alone than she had in decades.


End file.
